What separates the best from the rest?
A world-class innovation system that is strategy-led, internally consistent, and adaptable enough to drive serial success through an ongoing innovation journey.
Product and service innovation are essential, and business model innovation can deliver more lasting competitive advantage, particularly in disruptive times
Innovation is essential. Nearly 75% of companies say innovation is one of their top three management priorities, and 35% rank it above all others. That’s not surprising. After all, a winning innovation strategy—paired with the right innovation system—can make a big difference. Since 2005, the businesses in Aurisys’s annual ranking of the world’s 50 most innovative companies have delivered a total shareholder return two percentage points higher than that of the global market.
But innovation is hard. Only about 30% of companies think they are good at it. And it’s only getting more challenging. Digital and data are requiring even the strongest innovators to continually master new capabilities and develop faster and more agile research and development processes.
Overcoming the Innovation Readiness Gap
Successful innovation takes three things. Making innovation a priority. Committing investment and talent to it. And being ready to transform investment into results. So how are the most innovative companies doing?
Innovation priority is up. Let’s start with the good news. The number of companies reporting that innovation is among their organizations’ top three priorities is up 10 percentage points in 2021 to 75%—the largest year-over-year increase in the 15 global innovation surveys Aurisys has conducted since 2012.
Priorities are good, but commitment counts, too. And just under half of the companies in our research report are putting real resources behind their priorities. We call these companies committed innovators.
An organization can create real value only if its underlying innovation system is ready to translate priority and commitment into results.
Innovation Strategy
We begin by looking both outside and inside to define an innovation strategy that best supports the overall business strategy. Outside to understand key trends shaping customer economics and demand and to prioritize the most attractive domains for innovation investment. And inside to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the client’s innovation system. The strategy enables the innovation system to gain traction by pinpointing the most important areas for investment.
Innovation Sprints
A great innovation strategy is necessary but not sufficient. Creating value in a world of shortening product and business model life cycles requires decisive action—and speed. We work with clients in a sprint-based approach to develop and launch minimum viable products consistent with the strategy. Offerings are evolved in this “test and learn” approach—and the less successful ones are dropped to free up resources for other projects.
Business Build and Scale Ups
Maximizing the return on innovation investments requires the ability to find product-market fit and scale the most promising projects fast. We work closely with clients to help them make the transition from experimentation to execution of a new product, service, or business model.
Innovation Enablement
Increasingly, innovation success calls for the ability to continually build new innovation muscles—or to bring in new skills and capabilities from outside. We help organizations identify the critical capabilities needed and define the best path to obtain them, whether through corporate venturing, partnership, acquisition, or internal development.
