The great business management philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” This is how I feel about the current state of business innovation. New innovation usually starts out on the right path but often ends up in the ditch.
Business Innovation is Top Priority
Innovation is clearly a key driver of organic growth for all companies. 67% of the most innovative companies say innovation is a competitive necessity regardless of sector or geography. Leading innovators have grown 16% higher than the least innovative companies(1). It’s no wonder that 91% of companies believe innovation is a top strategic priority(2).
It turns out that many organizations actually struggle to bring organic innovation to market. Even though 84% of executives say innovation is extremely or very important to their companies’ growth strategy, only 39% say their companies are good at commercializing new products or services (3).
The Critical Gap
Connecting innovation programs (and resulting new inventions) to what happens later with market adoption (and revenue growth) isn’t possible without what happens in between. My theory is that there is a critical gap … one that is unnecessarily killing many promising innovations.
Not enough is known about the reasons why so many organizations struggle to bring their own organic innovation to market.
Intrapreneurship Benchmark Survey
With that in mind, I have decided to create The First Annual Intrapreneurship Benchmark Survey on Commercializing Innovation. The survey is available immediately and collects data to establish new benchmarks.
Once collected, the data will be analyzed and included in a written report. The full report will be made available to survey respondents. Highlights will also be published later in selected business publications as well as on this website.
You can help stop the senseless killing of important innovations too. After all, “When you come to a fork in the road take it” – also Yogi Berra.
Take this fork with me. Seriously, please help me by taking a few minutes of your time to share your experiences in this area by taking the survey.
As always, leave me your thoughts and comments below.
Footnotes:
(1) PWC Report “Breakthrough Innovation and Growth” – September 2013
(2) GE Report “Global Information Barometer” – January 2013
(3) McKinsey & Company Report “Innovation and Commercialization” – 2010
(4) Ernst & Young Report “Igniting Innovation: How Hot Companies Fuel Growth from Within” – 2010