It is a commitment to reach a growth goal through a structured set of innovation initiatives, and therefore it needs a set of concrete actions to achieve that goal, deployed in an actionable innovation plan.
In other words, a good innovation strategy defines:
● the “why” (diagnosis of the business model, closest environment
and trends: see the triple view to identify innovation challenges)
● the “what”: the strategic innovation lines, identifying target types of
innovation, and the goal to be reached.
● the “how”: action plan to drive the strategy
It is not an innovation strategy if:
● There is no clearly identified challenge, based on a clear diagnosis of obstacles to overcome and opportunities to seize: what do we want to achieve with innovation?
● It is generic and does not land the target types of innovation
● It is not iterative: innovation planning cannot be annual or long term, but rather episodic, changing with the environment
● It does not clearly mark the difference to be achieved in relation to what the competition does
● It does not define where to put resources, and where NOT to put them
● There is no concrete action plan
15 key questions to define your innovation strategy
We have divided the questions into 5 areas of analysis. The questions are prioritized (strategic reflections of this kind obviously cover more topics), and they represent the questions we currently consider key at SDLI for a company, after analyzing its business model, to be able to develop its innovation strategy. Here they are:
- Of what we do today, what is obsolete (or will soon be) and what is differentiating?
- Which current capabilities, resources or assets can I better apply to boost the differentiating elements of our business model? Diagnosis of the competitive environment
- What could leave us out of the business?
- What should we do to be better than our competition?
Trend diagnosis - Which trends will most impact our business model?
- How can we use technology to improve our value proposition and the efficiency of the business model?
Customer diagnosis - Why do customers choose us?
- What reasons do customers have to leave us?
- Which customer need remains recurrently unresolved?
Designing an innovation plan - What does “innovation” mean for our organization?
- How should innovation contribute to growth goals?
- Which types of innovation are we most interested in driving to keep differentiating ourselves?
- What impact do we expect to get from innovation (think of different time horizons)?
- What resources is the organization willing to invest in innovation?
- Which innovation initiatives are best suited to drive each
type of innovation?
