Many execs realize that growth cannot be achieved by the core business alone. Market opportunities and winning solutions require key capabilities that the mainstream business does not have to effectively change the business model.

Establish a central innovation team and provide them ample resources, talent and support to build successful and sustaining solutions. The more the proposed strategy deviates from those deployed against the core, the more it makes sense to set up outside the BU.  As you approach this challenge, here are six considerations:

1.   Create an inventory of the skills and capabilities needed to execute the innovation strategy. Success will require new thinking, so not all will be found within. Search for talent who has done what you need.
2.    Budgets should be housed centrally and ring-fenced – immune to quarterly budget pressures.
3.    Make CEO-level sponsorship highly visible so there’s less scope for distractive behaviors that can veer efforts off track.
4.    Encourage BUs to have “skin in the game” – appoint key players to executive leadership, regularly meet with functional heads who will be impacted by what’s coming, transfer a high potential talent onto the team.
5.    Be vigilant against the risk of ‘not-invented-here’ syndrome, especially as you move closer to commercialization.
6.    Prepare to kill a project. Resources are finite and subject to above average scrutiny. Keep the attention on those initiatives with the best chance of success.

Jon Wilson has a diverse background embracing roles in Business Unit leadership, Marketing and Innovation across global corporations, start-ups and consulting practices. His experience includes developing domain expansion platforms on existing brands, including opportunities in both consumer and business-to-business adjacencies; developing processes, tools and capabilities in support of company innovation agendas; and, leading of a venture capital backed nutraceutical food company, targeting the needs of mature consumers with multiple chronic disease conditions.

#innovation #lanesofperspective #strategy #whitespacedevelopment #kimberlyclark #kellogg
#lodestoneinnovation