Key Ingredients to Successful Innovation Leadership

 

Figure 1:  Key Ingredients to Successful Innovation Leadership  (@SHM Consulting, 2017)

There are three key ingredients to have successful innovation leadership:  strong support from senior management, high number of ideas from employees and a strong innovation process in place.  If any of these are missing, then the full impact of any item present is not realized.

Looking at the Venn diagram above, the ideal position an organization can be in is the area marked 4.  This indicates that all three key ingredients are present. The other numbered areas (1, 2, 3) indicate that two of the key ingredients are present.  These three areas lead to less than optimum results, as follows:

Area 1 – Spinning your wheels

In this case, there are lots of good ideas, and senior management has shown strong support to move these ideas forward.  Without a strong innovation process in place, though, the ideas will never be turned into new products or services.

Area 2 – Empty funnel

Senior management are looking for ideas and there’s a good process to turn them into new products or services.  But having no ideas is like a car engine with no gas.  It should be pointed out that staff members never have a lack of ideas.  Rather, they are hesitant to bring ideas forward, or the idea collection system is not storing the ideas properly.

Area 3 – Wasted energy

In this scenario, there are lots of good ideas, and there’s a strong process in place to turn them into new products and services.  But with no senior management support in place, efforts to transform the ideas in to new products and services will go nowhere.

Where is your organization?

Where would you like it to be?

James Allan is an expert in creativity and innovative thinking. He helps leaders create and sustain infectious innovation, and is the author of the upcoming book  Infectious Innovation, to be published in the spring. To find out more about improving your innovation leadership, contact him at james@shmconsulting.net or visit www.shmconsulting.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ApplePay proves that Large Companies can have Much Greater Success with Innovation than Startups


There are hundreds of small financial technology start-ups that are trying to disrupt the current financial structure which banks provide. Here in Canada, there are 5 major banks that have such a large and established customer base that they are not threatened by the fintech startups with great ideas but no brand, and no cohesive way of bringing together payments, credit cards, lending, investing and wealth management. The cost of getting new clients for the startups is much greater than the return they can accomplish in the short to mid term. The smart startups sell or licence their technology to one of the large banks, rather than trying to brand themselves to be the next Uber in the financial world.

Large players, however, have the ability to make a large shift in the world of personal banking. Enter Apple with their ApplePay. A lot of people have iPhones, but not necessarily cash. So Apple has provided ApplePay to allow consumers to purchase without a credit or debit card. Instead, their bank account is linked directly to their iPhone or Apple watch, and payment may be made directly. There's an additional benefit that cashiers don't see card details, so it's more private. This is gaining steam because Apple, unlike startups, has a brand name that people trust!

It's a great innovation, and the Canadian banks have jumped on board. They all offer links for ApplePay to their bank accounts and credit cards, and even go so far as to market the service to their clients.

Now that Apple is collecting a lot of information on consumers about their payments, they could leverage that to offer credit cards, and other lending products. With their brand, agility and reach, they could become a major factor in the financial industry in a very short time period -- proving once again that big business has more to gain from innovation than startups!

The author, James Allan, is an expert in business innovation who helps business leaders create and sustain infectious innovation to dramatically grow revenues. Contact James for more details at james@shmconsulting.net, or visit his website at www.shmconsulting.net.