Innovation Management and Governance

In a “flattening” world, the ability to innovate effectively and repeatedly is becoming an increasingly important source of competitive advantage — because cost advantages based on labor or materials can be fleeting in today’s markets. Many firms seeking new products or markets know only to assemble the "right" resources and hope for the best. All too often, this results mostly in companies funding the pet projects of favored managers and business units, or in shapeless efforts which cost more than they ever earn.

The study of innovation by business-experienced researchers such as Clayton Christensen is beginning to yield insights that can make innovation a discipline, and less a matter of chance. Still, most firms are focused on the "front end" of innovation ("ideation"). In addition to brainstorming workshops, numerous gurus offer guidance on where to focus ideation efforts, or how to generate the ideas most likely to succeed. Most offer little rigorous guidance for how choose among competing proposals. Worse, they often assume that product development processes already in place can take over and successfully shepherd all new ideas through development to market deployment. Yet the most robust learning from the study of innovation is that the development processes in place tend to strangle in the cradle the most important and game-changing innovations.

Our practice in innovation management and governance focuses not on ideation, but on making sure the good ideas are picked up and succeed. We help our clients to: