From Cheryl Perkins, former Chief Innovation Officer for Kimberly Clark:
Cheryl Perkins is a thought leader in innovation and a creative catalyst in brand-building initiatives that contribute to rewarding consumer experiences and improved business performance. She was named one of Business Week's top 25 leaders in innovation. She and Soren Kaplan will be presenting a web seminar sharing their experiences and insights on February 22nd. More info here.
Do you have the in-house capabilities to deliver a pipeline of innovations that deliver new to your company and new to the world solutions? Are you structured to leverage the capabilities and expertise of others outside your company to deliver innovations? Many C-suite executives are answering “No” to these questions. They are struggling with creating value for their shareholders while maximizing their speed to market with their existing traditional R&D and marketing organizational structures.
I think many of us will agree that it is becoming harder and harder to meet corporate growth objectives. Organizational design is one lever you have that can enable you to deliver a pipeline of innovations for existing businesses and in new white spaces. The innovation processes, systems, and tools maybe in place but many lack critical competencies, expertise in new and emerging products, technologies, solution designs, brands and channel access and have insufficient time to deliver the required top line growth. There is often an inability to reallocate resources and dollars to build these competencies internally. The answer is to develop the infrastructure to access these solutions externally. Dedicate a few talented resources to focusing on looking outside the boundaries of the company for ideas, intellectual property and solutions.
The cross functional team of collaborative resources can be chartered to think broadly about “what” a potential solution is, which is much more important than “where “ the solution came from. The organizational structure should be designed to leverage the diverse expertise and deliver capabilities in the areas of in-licensing, out-licensing, joint developments, partnering/alliances, venture capital and brokering. The team should be charged with identifying external sources of innovation and helping with the demise of “not invented here” that may exist within the company. You will be amazed by the many successful win-win collaborations that will be created by an open innovation model. The solutions delivered by the team will be truly differentiated and meaningful innovations with short cycle times. Organizational design coupled with the open innovation model will fill internal capability gaps and increase business output.
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