How do you place your future innovation bets?

14 april, 2016 Innovation ,

The WHY of innovation today isn’t just about avoiding that your product range turns into commodity. Instead it is becoming brutally clear that change is accelerating, in many areas of society. Think about it: if things didn’t change, you and your organization would probably not need to put so much time and resources into innovation. You could probably just keep on doing what you are doing and still be fairly successful.

With accelerating change, innovation has today however become a critical strategic imperative for most organizations. Even before, innovation didn’t come without challenges. The most obvious challenge is still that innovation is about understanding and fulfilling future customer needs in a future market place.

How do you know where to place your future bets?

An innovation funnel is normally a pipeline filled with innovation ideas coming in from one end, and at the other end, only a few ideas surviving the many internal gates along the way to market. But how do you know which of all of these ideas and concepts that are most attractive? And where do you place your future bets?

We actually just came out of a corporate innovation meeting with an international B2B client and their management team. After supporting them with their annual market review, we have during the past months helped them map and visualize their NPD project portfolio covering their next strategic period for them to figure out where to place their future bets.

One part of the meeting was spent on Mega Trends as a driver of innovation and how executives across the globe handle an environment in accelerating change. The other part of the meeting was spent in looking at customized KPI’s relevant for their portfolio of NPD projects.

If the discussion was fruitful? Yes, indeed. If all of the individual NPD projects will be successful? That still remains to be seen, as always when it comes to innovation. The team has however been provided a thorough screening and overview of their NPD portfolio and been given tools to better prioritize their projects, including insights into future trends.

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Feature image from: Marketcartoonist.com

 

About the author

Elisabet Lagerstedt

Elisabet Lagerstedt

Elisabet Lagerstedt is the founder and director of Future Navigators. As a trusted advisor, consultant, and Executive Coach, she helps business leaders navigate beyond business as usual to build Better Business and co-create a better future - through insight, strategy, innovation, and transformation. Elisabet is also the author of Better Business, Better Future (2022) and Navigera in i Framtiden (2018).