Having trouble convincing your management teams to support corporate innovation? If so, you're not alone. Corporate innovation is a delicate balancing act. You might not always know where you'll land with an experiment that you're running. Even still, you need to tie every decision you're making back to long-term stakeholders within your company.
Convincing management to support corporate innovation can feel like an uphill battle. Here's how 8 brilliant corporate innovation leaders are solving this pain point.
1. How to Convince Your Conservative Boss to Innovate
Author: Gijs van Wulfen, Founder of FORTH Innovation Method
Read It Here: Huffington Post
Your company needs to innovate, but your boss says no every time you propose something new. Here are four ways to convince upper management that innovation matters:
1. Pick the right moment to convince your boss, colleagues, and board that doing nothing is a bigger risk.
2. Draft a concrete innovation assignment detailing your organization's unique goals.
3. Invite upper management to join the innovation team.
4. Highlight corporate innovation methods, tools, and techniques that have been linked to success in the past.
2. Corporate Innovation Trends
Author: Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights
Read It Here: CBInsights
The average company lifespan on the S&P 500 is rapidly declining, so it's critical that corporations take innovation seriously. Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights (Silicon Valley's leading venture capital database) and former leader of American Express' Innovation Fund, explains why the biggest threat to an S&P 500 company is a web of startups and not its largest competitor, and how corporations can use startups to innovate faster. Leverage data to make your case.
3. The Ten Types Of Corporate Innovation Programs
Author: Jeremiah Owyang, Founder of Crowd Companies
Read It Here: Huffington Post
Just because your boss isn't a fan of intrapreneur programs doesn't mean he or she needs to dismiss corporate innovation altogether. For today's corporations, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to innovation. Need proof? From dedicated innovation teams (MasterCard, BMW, and HallMark) to external accelerators (Rocketspace, Singularity University, and 500 Startups), here are ten different types of corporate innovation programs. Present upper management with options.
4. How To Create A Culture of Innovation
Author: Faisal Hoque, Author of “Everything Connects – How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability" and Founder of SHADOKA
Read It Here: FastCompany
As noted by former CEO of IBM Lou Gerstner, a non-innovative environment oftentimes stems from company culture. To cultivate innovation, it's imperative to listen to all of your organization's internal and external community members; stay open-minded to off-the-wall ideas; collaborate with outside groups like universities, think tanks, complementary corporations, and government agencies; consider implementing a flat management structure; and embrace accidents, as many of the world's greatest innovations, like penicillin and the microwave, have emerged from them.
5. Innovate or Die: The Stark Message for Big Business
Author: Matthew Wall, Business Reporter at BBC News
Read It Here: BBC
In the current climate of digital disruption, the stark truth is this: companies that don't innovate risk extinction. Just look at corporations like Alta Vista, Blockbuster, Kodak, Polaroid, and Borders… sadly, the list continues. Mitigate upper management's fear of innovation by pointing to Amazon, perhaps one of the best exemplifiers of lean start-up principles in action (with a whopping $2.2T valuation).
6. Future² - Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Host: Steve Glaveski, Collective Campus
Hear the Talk: Podcast
Share this podcast to prove that you're informed. Hosted by Steve Glaveski, co-founder of Collective Campus (an Australian innovation hub linked to world-class startups like Uber, Drawboard, and Zomato), Future² is a podcast series that delves deep into the latest insights, case studies, and trends surrounding corporate innovation and entrepreneurship. Previous guests include innovation managers from KPMG, NAB, and Kmart, plus decision-makers at Google Ventures, 500 Startups, and Techstars.
7. Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days
Authors: Scott Anthony, David S. Duncan, and Pontus M.A. Siren, Partners at Innosight
Read It Here: HBR
Just because a corporation implements innovation doesn't mean it does so in an orderly, reliable way. Here's how to get your innovation engine humming the way it should—in only 90 days:Day 1 to 30: Define your "core innovations" (current innovation projects) and “new-growth innovations" (future initiatives). Day 20 to 50: Focus on a small number of strategic opportunity areas (i.e., a competitive advantage). Day 20 to 70: Create a small but dedicated innovation team. Day 45 to 90: Form your initiative's shepherding mechanism, a group of senior leaders who decide when to start, stop, or redirect new-growth innovation projects.
8. How Global Corporations Can Work with Startups
Author: RocketSpace
Read It Here: RocketSpace Blog
According to a report by Constellation Research, 52 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 have gone bankrupt, been acquired, or ceased to exist in the last 15 years. To avoid the risk of becoming obsolete, corporations need to adapt to changing market conditions, quickly. A startup partnership can help your corporation be first-to-market with a new idea. For many companies, however, these partnerships represent new terrain. That's why RocketSpace put together this guide to help you better understand and navigate the uncertainties that you may face.
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