The Corporate Innovation Assessment: What's your innovation score?

Take The Corporate Innovation Assessment

RocketSpace created a simple 8-question Corporate Innovation Assessment, which will give you:

1. A temperature check on where you are at in your innovation journey in the innovation maturity scale.
2. A deeper look into where your organization excels when it comes to corporate innovation.
3. Areas of opportunity to explore further and a recommended starting point around how to create or accelerate your corporate innovation initiatives.

Some terms you will see in the questions and results:

• Proof-of-Concept (PoC): A small scale, pre-market test in a controlled environment that validates the feasibility of a minimal viable product / solution prior to an in-market, consumer-facing test. Typically internal and non-consumer facing and lasts under three months.
  
• Pilot Test: In-market, consumer facing test in a monitored environment that validates the feasibility of a product / solution prior to launching or scaling as sustainable product/solution. Typically lasts three to six months.

How Do You Stack Up Against Top Corporate Innovators? 

Innovate or die — most corporations are aware of this mantra by now. Digital transformation is here to stay, and no company, sector, or industry is immune to technological disruption. Some companies will thrive under such change. Others will be eaten by it.

One doesn’t have to look further than the top five global companies by market capitalization today compared to 2001. At the start of the 21st century, oil, gas, and banking giants dominated this list. Now, all five positions are held by tech companies Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. 

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Sources:
1. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-largest-companies-market-cap-15-years/
2. https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies

Unicorns: A unicorn startup or unicorn company is a private company with a valuation over $1 billion

Tech Enabled: A company is a business services company that uses proprietary technology to deliver something that is better, faster, and cheaper than if you do it yourself or hire a traditional firm

If a company is not constantly reinventing itself, it is on a slow walk down the plank. Today, a company lasts less than 20 years on the S&P 500, down from 60 years in the 1950s.

 

As Reid Hoffman co-founder and former executive at LinkedIn, has said, “Ironically, in a changing world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things you can do.”

Simply put, the winners in the 21st Century don’t fight change — they embrace it. In order to survive in this changing world, organizations must invest in innovation.

But how do you know if you have a successful innovation strategy?

In speaking with a wide range of our clients, we find that leaders agree on the importance of innovation but often struggle with the following challenges:

• “We know we need to innovate but don’t know where to start.”
• “We have an innovation program but we are not sure how to measure the success or ROI.”
• “Our board and C-suite want quick wins but we also need to be investing in the disruptive bets that might not pay off for five years, and frankly, our culture isn’t set up to do that.”

A McKinsey survey demonstrated that 84% of executives say that innovation is critical to their growth strategy, but only 6% of them are satisfied with the innovation performance to date.

Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/how-we-help-clients/growth-and-innovation

So, corporations now understand and embrace the need for innovation, but a gap still stands around how to successfully innovate. Cultural inertia, analysis paralysis, lack of buy-in from the C-Suite, and silo-ed business units are obstacles that many of our clients share as their main innovation challenges.

If your company is successful at doing one or two things well, there are a number of cultural and financial incentives for you to continue milking the golden cow rather than attempt to disrupt yourselves.

We understand this isn’t easy. If it was, every company would seamlessly transform itself. Since 2011, RocketSpace has led strategic innovation and digital transformation with over 130 leading global corporations across different industries and technologies.

We believe that the best place to start is for a corporation to take an honest, self-reflective, and holistic analysis of their key competencies — both internally and externally — regarding where they are in their innovation journey.

Some questions to consider include:

• "Is my core product/service growing or facing top-line revenue stagnation?"
• "What percentage of my revenue is made up of products and services that we introduced in the past five years? Is this number growing or shrinking?"
• "Could there be a disruptive technology that we are not aware of that could eat into our core business?"
• "What level of awareness do we have of the startups who are operating in our space (including those in stealth mode)?"
• "Have we considered the global ecosystem of potential adjacent business units that we could enter or partner our way into?"

This self-reflective exercise can seem daunting at first given all the existing priorities that might be on your plate. But remember, your company will either innovate or die.

What's Your Score?

Are you The Big Bang, The Mars Rover, The Meteor Shower, or The Sun?

What does a company with your score do well, and what are some challenges you may face at this stage in your innovation journey?

Scroll to your Corporate Innovation Assessment profile below to review your results.

Innovation Score 0 - 8: The Big Bang

"We know 'innovation' as a buzzword is important, but we don't know where to start. And, we feel we're doing well enough for now! So, why change?"

As John Chambers has said in Connecting the Dots, "Companies don't go out of business for doing the wrong thing, they go out of business for doing the right thing too long.” The same can be said about organizations that are in “The Big Bang” phase.

Your organization is hyper-focused on perfecting what you already have and may not realize that disruption from technological innovation is coming! The world around you is changing, and if your company doesn’t evolve with the times, you won’t remain or become a market leader. Digital technology isn’t only changing your industry, but the world your customers exist within too.

Digital technology is changing the way your customers shop (B2C and B2B), the distribution channels used to reach them, how they interact with your organization, and how loyal they are to you! Even your organization’s infrastructure and overall process optimization is impacted.  

But you don’t see it. You are Western Union in 1999. Your company owns taxi medallions in NYC in 2014. You are GE in 2018.

Generally, companies that land in “The Big Bang” stage tend to live in their own world with their heads down and blinders on, focusing on the core business of what they've been doing for a hundred years.

"Make more widgets!" may be your company's motto, and you’ve been making widgets for so long, you're the experts in the field, and you expect to remain that way! Like the last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, your company stubbornly wants to make widgets into eternity.

Top Challenges Companies Face in The Big Bang Stage

• Innovation activities are heavily focused on iterative innovation (i.e. enhancements to existing products and services).
• The C-suite are skeptical of what they cannot see: the mantra is "do what we do now, but better" vs. "look at what we should be doing next."
• Decisions are based on an inside-out perspective vs. an outside-in perspective.

Recommendations for Companies in The Big Bang Stage

External:

Start by looking into changing consumer behaviors and demands. If you're a B2B business, consider what's changing for your B2C customers and how you may need to innovate to meet their needs and continue to be their partner of choice.

Your organization needs to understand how and why your company is either in the process of being disrupted or will soon be disrupted.

Take a look — how has your industry changed in the last 18 months?

• What are the causes of these changes?  
• How do you know?
• What new industries and/or companies are popping up, taking over market share, or muscling out old/tenured companies?
• What shifts in consumer preferences are causing these new technologies to gain market share?  
• Do you really have a defensible moat?

Internal:

Start by looking at why your organization does not realize it is in innovation denial. There is a Japanese proverb that says, “The fish rots from the head down.”

Why is your organization complacent with its current state? Analyze and address the source of this problem.

Some questions to ask include:

• Are the C-Suite and Board so myopically focused on the core business that they are not looking ahead to the future?
• Is your culture one of complacencies, reactivity, and group think?  
• Does your organization lack incentives for curious out-of-the-box thinking?
• Are your employees too similar — be it in experience, background, education, skill sets, or mindsets?
• Is risk-taking tolerated? Are employees encouraged to try new things, even if they fail?
• Does your organization lack healthy turnover and new blood within the company?

When it comes to an internal action item, the first thing your organization must do is identify the root of the problem.

How RocketSpace Helps Companies in The Big Bang Stage

• We begin by holistically looking at your capabilities and gaps to create alignment on where you are currently at and what a definition of innovation success might be.
• We work closely with your team to understand the internal obstacles that will need to be overcome.
• We’ll support your learning around what the specific threats and opportunities are for your organization or industry, and what other companies (either competitors or adjacent to you) are doing to innovate.
• We’ll help you set your innovation vision and strategy as well as identify initial opportunity areas for you to explore with a tactical plan in support of this strategy.
• We help you stay relevant by showing you what you don’t know despite what you think you know.

Innovation Score 9 - 17: The Mars Rover

“We’ve created an innovation team and have done some research within our industry. We’re comfortable with what we’ve done so far and are still mastering that — why add anything new?”

Your company may be aware of some of the shifts your industry is facing and the changes in your consumer demands driven by new technologies in the market. But, your organization continues to dabble with innovation by making incremental improvements, optimizing processes, and doubling-down on its core strategy rather than thinking of how transform and reinvent yourself.

Internally, you mostly encourage your team members to focus on completing their jobs well but don’t actively encourage them to explore new, innovative technology adoptions that could be highly lucrative in three to five years.

Top Challenges Companies Face in The Mars Rover Stage

• A very narrow innovation focus largely driven by risk-averse C-Suite.
• A lack of research around transformative technologies and trends outside of your industry.  Most innovation is driven through R&D and is focused on business-as-usual areas; you have not yet embraced open innovation.
• Insular and focused thinking that you are aware of all the trends in your industry and innovation is driven only from the internal team.

Recommendations for Companies in The Mars Rover Stage

External: 

First, you must define your organization’s innovation transformation strategy. Put in the time and energy into developing your organization’s master innovation vision and strategy properly so that your innovation team has a clear charter that supports the company's master objectives.

Then, start by getting familiar with emerging technologies that can disrupt your industry (e.g. Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, AR/VR, Biometrics, Connected Sensors, 3D Printing, Blockchain, etc.), and begin evaluating how your company could utilize them.

Make sure leadership is familiar with what these technology areas are and how they are relevant to your industry, and begin to explore which external companies are leading in this space and how they could be used to achieve your company's innovation vision.

• How could they benefit your business?
• How would you structure a use case and what would be the metrics of success?
• How are you going to execute the plan, from initial outreach to PoC?

In addition, building upon your existing knowledge of innovation, start looking at technologies utilized by other industries as well and how they could potentially have an impact on your business.

Internal:

Start looking at how your organization addresses its problems and blindspots.

How do you solve them? What new processes can you start incorporating into that approach to your problems more holistically?

Examine the skill sets and backgrounds of people on your team and think about how to tap into the diversity of strengths that have not been used before. Focus on how to use the company’s openness to innovation to expand resources invested into making larger changes in the organization.

What's the overall innovation vision? What kind of skill sets do you need to recruit? Where does innovation sit in the organization — is it its own business unit or integrated within the company? What kind of resources (budget, people) will be required? How would your organization partner and/or learn from entrepreneurs?

Look into workshops for the leadership team on how to encourage a culture of innovation, and think of ways to expand your R&D and/or innovation team to include projects outside of your typical scope.

Learn how the most innovative companies build their culture. If you’ve worked with startups before, how can you start to adopt their processes rather than looking at them as just a vendor for your business?

How RocketSpace Helps Companies in The Mars Rover Stage

• We look at your existing activities to evaluate whether they have the potential to drive business impact or if they are just for show.
• We help prioritize opportunity areas that can support core, adjacent, and moonshot outcomes. 
• We help drive alignment between the C-Suite, Board, innovation team, and business units.
• We’ll leverage our startup expertise and global ecosystem to source ideal partners to pilot, invest in, or acquire that are relevant to your strategic goals.

Innovation Score 18 - 25: The Meteor Shower

“Innovation is a priority for us, and frankly, we feel we’re doing it well! We’ve performed a few Proof of Concepts (PoCs) that have gone well; therefore, we don’t see the need in going further in our innovation efforts.”

Your company is aware that innovation is important to your business and has even executed a few PoCs to prove it. Your organization is aware of the top startups and the emerging technologies they've developed to use in your industry and even beyond it. You may have even worked with some of these startups.

But — how does the innovation work you've done help achieve the overall innovation vision? How do the PoCs you’ve conducted live beyond the testing phase? Are you committed to integrating the technology within your operations to make it live long-term?

Your opportunity area lies within how you can scale these technologies into your business and across business lines. Successful PoCs are great, but how are you applying these solutions? What does your strategic innovation roadmap look like beyond the few PoC milestones? How can you get your ideas to scale?

Top Challenges Companies Face in The Meteor Shower Stage

• Lacking a clear innovation roadmap and milestones after performing a proof of concept.
• Difficulty in bringing a concept from ideation phase to implementation and tangible results.
• At a crossroads around how the creative ideas meet the operational realities of the business-as-usual environment.

Recommendations for Companies in The Meteor Shower Stage 

External: 

To understand the technology that is either currently or will transform your industry, you must simultaneously focus on a short, medium, and long-term horizon.

Short term is the core business. Medium term is adjacent business units. Long-term are the business units that you are not yet currently contemplating that could account for a significant portion of your revenue in five years.

If you’ve tried working with startups in the past and have been unsuccessful, analyze what went wrong. How did you approach working with the company? Was it related to the technology itself, the team, or lack of structure surrounding metrics?

Looking even further into the future, how are you going to get from doing PoCs to truly achieving and sustaining a long term innovation vision? Have you identified or considered what you need to do in Year One, Year Two, Year Three? After PoCs, what comes next for you? Is your long-term plan to invest in the companies, help them scale, or is your organization set up to lead the integration of the technology/startup within your company?

Internal:

Work with your innovation team on defining key metrics for your business and how they will be achieved.

What does the granular roadmap look like from concept design to implementation? Is it stress-tested? When you find a solution you want to adopt, how do you make sure all the key stakeholders are aligned? Are the correct incentives in place internally to ensure everyone is on-board?

Make sure success is clearly defined and internal reporting is constant so all stakeholders have an understanding of what is being done, why, and how.

How RocketSpace Helps Companies in The Meteor Shower Stage

• We’ll teach you how to strengthen your innovation culture with tools around organization management, resourcing, recruitment, and more.
• In addition to identifying companies for pilots and PoCs, we help operationalize these partnerships by integrating and testing them and supporting you to build a strategy to scale these in your business.
• We have a proprietary methodology for helping our clients track and evaluate partner outcomes and success and course correct, if needed, in real-time.

Innovation Score 26 - 32: The Sun

“We’re at the very top of our innovation game — is it really worth it to go higher?”

There is no doubt — you are one of the most innovative corporations and consistently maintain a culture of innovation.

You know how to leverage emerging technologies. You have both developed solutions internally and partnered with external innovation partners and scale-ups to introduce new products and services to your business. You consistently invest in more resources to push transformational change in the business, rather than improving upon existing frameworks.

But, are you doing all you can to ensure the solutions developed and startup partnerships are integrated within your organization’s entire infrastructure? If so, how do you know? Are each of your business units plugged into the innovation efforts you are embracing? Have you considered stewarding this transformational change even further, beyond your current core capabilities and industry?

Top Challenges Companies Face in The Sun Stage

• Knowing what is next! This is where we challenge you to go further. You’ve had great momentum and success, but it’s easy to become too comfortable with this stage.
• Setting up an internal Venture Capital arm and M&A machine.
• Not being blinded by initial success with innovation — staying hungry and humble, knowing that hundreds of startups are working hard round-the-clock on an idea that WILL disrupt your business and/or industry.

Recommendations for Companies in The Sun Stage

External: 

Your organization must integrate and scale the technologies and processes that have already been successfully tested into your day-to-day business operations.  

With the startups you’re already working with, focus on pushing for increasing excellence and collaboration between your business’ team and their team. Your organization must be continuously measuring ROI and optimizing to ensure that you can get any operational costs down, and increase margin.

Lastly, your organization should constantly be looking forward to the next big area of opportunity to ensure they have a continuous pipeline of future-proofed business.

Remember, you must Explore, Discover, Test, Scale, and repeat so your organization is always at the forefront of technological transformation, and never left behind.

Internal:

It’s time to start expanding upon your innovation teams and think of new ways to foster innovation in the business. There are several approaches that your company can take in doing this.

For example, explore setting up entirely new innovation divisions. This can include a ventures team, an innovation M&A team, an in-house corporate incubator, and more. Have your in-house corporate incubator focus on creating startup ideas of their own that can improve the business, or explore different innovation strategies such as design thinking or components testing.

You may even begin to explore how your organization can impact other industries too.

Look at Amazon — what started off as an online bookstore eventually transitioned into other industries too, including grocery stores, cloud storage, and now, even healthcare.

How RocketSpace Helps Companies in The Sun Stage

• We will continue to push you out of your comfort zone by advising you on global businesses, startups, technologies, and other trends that you need to be aware of.
• We help quantify ROI and benchmark innovation relative to competitors and best practices.
• We provide a sanity check when you have begun to drink your own Kool-Aid.

Take Action Today To Further Your Organization's Innovation Efforts

We know — and the data repeatedly tells us — that no one company, organization, or individual is immune to disruption from technology innovation.

In the current technology landscape, we are set to experience an incredible period of digital transformation and see the global impacts of it on a large scale. Corporate innovators and organizations should take this as an opportunity to shift with the changing tides instead of being left behind.

The above assessment is an easy tool from RocketSpace to provide velocity to the world’s top innovators. Our passion is to support the top global organizations as they use technology to shape the future. But, this is just one step in the deeper self-analysis all organizations must perform.

Keep resilient in your corporate innovation efforts, and continue to invest, test, and try new approaches in how you innovate.

As Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

And if you think innovation is expensive, try irrelevance!