Strategy

Creating the Master Plan for Innovation

Successful innovators, like Apple and Google, have inspired many others to be inventive with their products, services and business models. Many companies now aspire to being innovative, to disrupting mature markets and to creating new ones. In reality, innovation often proves to be highly risky, with low ROI and with success proving very hard to repeat.

The golden ruel is to plan for innovation. Too many corporate plans pay lip service to innovation and leadership teams leave the responsibility for innovation solely in the hands of middle managers. So innovation ends up being directionless, ad-hoc and often under resourced. Cogentum's vision makes it purposeful, repeatable and profitable.

The Innovation Strategy

We see the innovation strategy as the master plan that outlines the goals and direction for innovation. It also allocates the resources and investment, specifies the measures for success and helps to coordinate all innovation initiatives.

Linked to the corporate plan and growth strategy, the innovation strategy is designed to:

  • Define the strategic arena for innovation
  • Specify the goals & expectations of the innovation
  • Reflect the degree of innovativeness desired
  • Manage risk & reward over the Three Growth Horizons
  • Allocate the right people and financial resources

Ultimately it helps to prioritise innovation projects and directs resources to initiatives that provide the best strategic fit with the company's objectives.

Customer Pull or Technology Push?

Innovations are only successfully commercialised when enough customers choose, pay for and remain loyal to your companies offering. But why should they?

Some companies think it's because their product is technically superior, for others it's because their product is cheaper or more distinctive in some way that is relevant for the customer. The risk is in not knowing what the market wants before you invest in R&D and manufacturing capability. Too many products fail because there was no market need or the product was just not right for them. Cogentum's aim is to de-risk innovation and improve the successful commercialisation of innovations by keeping the customer at the heart of our innovation strategy.

To learn more about de-risking
or innovation strategies click here