what exactly does it take to create a sustainable innovation program, especially if they are in an industry that is traditionally risk averse?

1. You’ve heard it a thousand times: companies need to be innovating in order to survive. The Googles and the Apples of the world
are doing it- Google famously used to require employees to dedicate 20% of their time to innovation. But what exactly does it take
to create a sustainable innovation program, especially if they are in an industry that is traditionally risk averse? With the right forward
thinking, willing executive leadership team, incorporating innovation into the corporate fiber is possible. When done right, this will have a
significant impact on your bottom line. Here’s how:
Be open to change
Scary for many yes, but necessary? Absolutely.
Changingacompany’sculturalDNAdoesn’thavetobe
as painful as it sounds. Incorporating innovation, however,
doesmeanthatthelong-tenured,restrictingbusiness
modelneedstoberevaluatedandrestructuredtosupport
amoreopenbusinessstandard.Openbusinessmodels
allowforboththecreationandcapturingofvalue.
According to Henry Chesbrough, author of Open
Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation
Landscape, “Open Models create value by leveraging
many more ideas, due to their inclusion of a variety of
external concepts.” 1
Breaking down internal silos to
uncover game-changing ideas is the only way to get
ahead and stay ahead of the curve.
Embrace social media as a vehicle to facilitatecommunication
The Millenials aren’t coming. They’re already here.
As the global workforce begins to be inundated with young,
tech-savvy professionals, corporations are going to have to
embrace the reality that, whether they like it or not, the world
has gone social. As people are leveraging social channels for
personal forms of communication and entertainment, social
has found a place in the enterprise too. As the introduction
of social outlets has increased connectivity and fostered
communities of creativity within the workplace,organizations
Activateyour crowd
Fosteracommunityforrealizingcorporatesuccess.
Bypullingknowledgefromtheedgeofyouremployeeand/
or customer communities to the core of your company
where actionable ideas areexecuted,you areextracting
invaluabledatathatwillimproveyourbusiness.According
toGartner,“engagingalargecommunityofemployeesto
are starting to see that breaking down silos has its positives.
According to Forrester, “the larger trend toward enterprise 2.0
and the emerging social enterprise is inextricably bound to
the drive toward innovation.” 2
Social for social’s sake, though,
is no longer considered viable in the enterprise. Adopt a
platform that provides structured innovation capabilities
that leverages social dynamics, game mechanics and crowd
science algorithms to help solve specific innovation needs.
Finding that next billion-dollar idea is easier than it seems.
generate [ideas] will be best achieved with an event-based
or ongoing crowdsourcing initiative.” 3
Incorporating
engaging game mechanics such as incentives and rewards
(whether they be monetary or not) will act as a motivator for
the crowd to innovate and create productive change.
5 WAYSTO
CREATE A SUCCESSFUL
INNOVATIONPROGRAM
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2. 5WAYSTOCREATE ASUCCESSFUL INNOVATIONPROGRAM | 2
Listen
Your employees are your greatest assets. You’ve hired
them for a reason; why not leverage their knowledge and
creativity to better your company? As you may already be
aware, people’s abilities and passions aren’t always being
tapped within their day job role. Good ideas can come from
anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. According to Gartner,
“intellectual capital is a key driver of economic value for
every company, and that as such, it must be identified,
created, managed, measured and leveraged.” 4
By engaging
with your crowd to discover new business insights, you
are creating future success for your company while
simultaneously reinforcing employee satisfaction.
Incorporateaneffectivetooltomanagetheinfluxofideas
5 You wanted ideas and you got them. Companies who
have gotten over the hump of executive disbelief that they
are capable of creating a successful, scalable innovation
community, are then tasked with another challenge: once
they realize they have the ideas, they then need to find an
innovation platform that effectively elicits and manages
the valuable data that is captured. According to Gartner,
“today, 80 percent of a company’s information is
unstructured data.” 4
Sure, a large piece of creating a
thriving innovation eco-system involves executive buy-in,
strategic alignment and a willingness to step outside of
the box; however, once you’re there, you need a way to
sort the ideas and separate the good ideas from the not-
so-good ideas. Implementing an intuitive solution that is
easy-to-use, scalable, and robust is imperative. Innovation
doesn’t have to be as abstract a notion as some attempt
to claim. The process of innovation, when approached
effectively and with purpose, can have a tremendous
effect of a company’s long-term success. Global
industry and government leaders such as AT&T, Pfizer,
UnitedHealth Group, and the U.K. Government are just a
few examples of successfully implemented innovation
programs. Tapping into your crowd allows forinternal
cross-functionalteamsorexternalcustomercommunities
toaidintheestablishmentofcompanyplans,deliverables
and measurable objectives. Engaging in crowd-enabled
innovation allows organizations to harness the social
capitalwithintheircommunitiesandpinpointtheideasthat
drive revenue and generate cost savings. You’vegot the
resources, the ability, and the drive. Go ahead, activate your
crowdtoday.
REFERENCES
1 Henry Chesbrough, “Open Business Models: How to Thrive In The New Innovation Landscape,” Harvard Business School Press,2006, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, accessed August 15, 2011.
2 Rob Koplowitz et. al, “Disciplined Social Innovation,” Forrester, Aug. 30, 2010, Forrester.com, accessed August 15, 2011.
3 Kathy Harris, “Use Innovation Network Design to Unleash Open Innovation,” Gartner, Feb. 28, 2011, Gartner.com, accessed August 15, 2011.
4 Tom Austin et. al, “Introducing the High-Performance Workplace: Improving Competitive Advantage and Employee Impact,” Gartner, May 16, 2005, Gartner.com, accessed August 15, 2011.
Spigit is registeredtrademarksof Spigit, Inc.Fortune 100 is a registeredtrademark of the FORTUNEmagazine division of Time Inc.
Spigit crowdsourcing software helps companies engage internal and external crowds in innovation, using patented algorithms,
game mechanics, and crowd-derived data to identify and analyze the most valuable ideas, predict their potential business value,
and assess challenges. Spigit’s sophisticated, user-friendly interface powers engagement and ideation, amplifying a company’s
ability to innovate faster, more often, and better than competitors. Our mobile-first platform offers simultaneous releases in 11
languages and four global data centers, allowing for real-time, global innovation that is safe, scalable, and repeatable. Spigit’s
4.5M users from 150+ countries have generated over $1B from their enterprise innovation programs.
SPIGIT | San Francisco, CA, USA | spigit.com | hello@spigit.com | (Sales) 1-855-774-4480
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