Strategy on Innovation Capabilities

Abstract

In today’s turbulent economic and technological environment, it is difficult for large enterprises to survive. To do so, innovation is needed. Firms that have perfected the exploitation of their current portfolio now need to focus more on exploring new business opportunities.

Innovation Booster (IB) helps large enterprises to create new business by performing innovation projects together. Throughout recent years, IB has developed towards being a partner in making firms more innovative. As IB transitions towards helping companies perform transformations, they encounter a new challenge: How to measure our transformational effect on clients? This is the question this research originally set-out to answer.

To tackle this challenge, a lean and agile approach was taken. Due to this approach, two insights were gathered quickly. First, a ‘company transformation’ is dependent on the company and the industry that a company is in. This makes it impossible to measure the objective ‘state of transformation’ of a company. Nevertheless a relative measurement (where progress from a base-line towards a pre-determined strategy is measured) might be possible.

The second important finding of the exploration phase is that clients of IB do not have a strategy regarding innovation (and thus transformation). The design goal of this research thus shifted from creating an objective measurement to helping IB’s clients make an Innovation Strategy.

To realise this goal, the Innovation Capabilities Assessment (ICA) was designed. This assessment is based on a framework that was grounded in the Dynamic Capabilities and Innovation Strategy theory. The ICA works as follows: first, data is gathered through use of a chatbot. This data is then visualized and used as input for a qualitative session in which Innovation Managers determine a strategy and pinpoint hurdles to improve Innovation Capabilities. The results of these elements are compiled and presented in a report, together with actions on how to improve the innovation program.

It is important to note that the ICA is only a first step in making transformation more measurable. If IB wants to make more impact on enterprises and transform more effectively, senior management will need to redefine their strategy and develop a follow-up proposition. In contrast with the ICA, this service can aim at objectively measuring improvement of Innovation Capabilities and thereby at measuring IB’s transformational effect.