Recognizing Root Cause of Innovation Failure

Root Causes of Innovation Failure

So what are root causes of poor innovation performance?

Following a series of surveys by BCG ( www.bcg.com ) a few years back, they argued there was a clear emerging need to resolve specific ‘weaknesses’ in the innovation practices of clients that are impacting the ROI and driving down innovation performance.

How can you fix the root causes of these? We have some clear thoughts and would be happy to discuss these with you.

Here are my thoughts on the root causes of failure

Key concerns that impacted innovation provided from these surveys were:

  1. Lengthy development times
  2. A risk-adverse culture
  3. Difficulty selecting the right ideas to commercialize
  4. Lack of internal and international coordination
  5. Poor enforcement of time lines & milestones
  6. Limited measures and metrics to understand performance
  7. A lack of organizational alignment
  8. Dissatisfied with return on spending

Squandered opportunities need targeted improvement

  1. Learning to balance risks
  2. Focusing on time frames more
  3. Seeing returns across the portfolio of projects
  4. Earmarking sufficient funds
  5. Partnering effectively with suppliers and others
  6. Fostering a climate of innovation that promotes.
  7. Deepen the understanding of customers

Outcomes needed to be resolved

  1. Moving quickly
  2. Enforcing time lines and milestones
  3. Balancing risks and returns across the portfolio
  4. Obtaining input from across divisions and geographical areas
  5. Securing early commercial involvement
  6. Earmarking sufficient funds and appropriate resources
  7. Providing strong support to the project teams  

Hurdles tend to lie at different stages of the innovation process (industry specifics examples but certainly not exclusive to these only)

  1. Idea selection (mainly technology and telecoms)
  2. This lack of clear insight into customers (manufacturing)
  3. A shortage of great ideas (consumer products)
  4. Inability to get across, market and publicize innovation (Auto)
  5. Moving ideas to cash
  6. Time-to-market, time to volume

The triple bottom line: speed, discipline, enforcement

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Author: paul4innovating

I work as a transition advocate for innovation, ecosystems, within IIoT, and the energy system as my points of focus. I relate content to context to give greater knowledge and build the transition narratives we are all undergoing. I have been investing my time in growing my understanding, expertise, and thinking over these “core” topics. My Innovation intent has been central to this for twenty years. This has progressively ‘funnelled down’ into recognizing the value of ecosystems as the business design for innovation to thrive and deliver more significant value creation in the Energy Transition that is underway.