Again, a fantastic new book has seen the light “Innovation as Usual”.

Innovation as Usual: How to Help Your People Bring Great Ideas to Life, written by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg and Paddy Miller.

In the Sunday Times, Hannah Prevett Published (24 March 2013) a strong article based on the outcome of the book. She summarized the book with the key message that is that focus beats freedom. See the following parts of the article:

When organisations urge their teams to think creatively, employees are often given no guidelines — they are simply told to “think outside the box”. But sometimes a little direction is much more useful in creating a culture of innovation, the book argues.

“There are these perceptions that if you want people to be creative, it’s just about giving them all the freedom in the world. That might work in some settings — if you are an R&D company, for example. But my experience is that, if you give people total freedom in a regular company, that’s paralysing.”

In the book, the authors explain that employees are used to making micro-decisions as part of their day-to-day duties. But when they are taken out of that environment, they will come face to face with choices that are unfamiliar and make them feel uncomfortable. This can lead to inertia.

The theory has been borne out by empirical research. A study undertaken by the authors in 2011 with Koen Klokgieters, vice president of strategy and innovation at the consultant Capgemini, found that the failure of companies to direct people’s search for new ideas may be the most widespread barrier to innovation.

The researchers solicited the views of 260 executives worldwide, most of whom had the word “innovation” in their job title. Only 42% of the companies surveyed had an explicit innovation strategy, and just 55% of the executives demonstrated an awareness of any systems they had in place to help employees innovate.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg gives you a snapshot of the six key steps to getting more creativity and innnovation from your employees as presented in his book via several videos:
1.Focus, 2.Connect, 3.Tweak, 4.Filter, 5.Stealthstorm and 6.Persist.

Evolution of Innovation management will be published on the 15th of February 2013

A new book of Evolution of Innovation management will be published on the 15th of February 2013, edited by Alexander Brem and Eric Viardot. The book is about the fact that Innovation is seen as a key driver for performance and growth in business. It provides a strong competitive advantage and is one of the best ways to speed up the rate of change and adaptation to the global environment. Concurrently, the topic of innovation is also gaining increased visibility and interest among academic communities worldwide.


However, some of the challenges of innovating are remarkably consistent and recent times have shown the emergence of new ways for stimulating and

managing the innovation process, especially from an international perspective. Even if these processes are taking place in very different industries, there are many parallels in successfully managing them.

The new book explores these new routes and assesses their value both for markets and companies. More specifically, the book is organized around three themes:
• Innovation Strategies
• Innovation Management Tools
• International Perspectives

Together with Robin Chu (team member in my Business Innovation team and one of our top strategic analyst) I wrote chapter 15: “Creating an Environment for Successful Innovation - A Management Consultant's Perspective”

To view detailed content of the book, please visit Palgrave

Notes on Contributors

Symbiotic Innovation: Getting the Most Out of Collaboration; R.J.Thomas & Y.Wind

Performance Measurement of Co-Creation Initiatives – A Conceptual Framework for Measuring the Value of Idea Contests; V.Bilgram

Measuring the Success of Open Innovation; E.Brau, R.Reinhardt & S.Gurtner

Can SMEs in Traditional Industries be Creative?; J.M.Zabala-Iturriagagoitia

Scenario-based Learning Architectures as a Management Tool; N.Pfeffermann & H.Breuer

Social Network Analysis – an Important Tool for Innovation Management; G.Drexler & B.Janse

The Evolution of Mobile Social Networks through Technological Innovation; V.Ratten

Exploring the Role of Early Customers in the Commercialization of Innovation; F.Frattini, G.Colombo & C.Dell'Era

Managing Communities of Practice to Support Innovation; S.Borzillo & R.Kaminska

Joining Innovation Efforts using both Feed-forward and Feedback Learning: the Case of Japanese and Korean Universities; I.Oh

Innovation Management Reflections: a Brazilian Market Perspective; F.A.Salum, R.S.Reis & H.Ferreira Braga Tadeu

The Global Importance of Innovation Champions: Insights from China; A.Kriz, C.Molloy & B.Dennes

Frugal Innovation; P.M.Banerjee

Flexible Working, Mobility and IT Innovation and ICT in 2012 – The Case of Flexible Working; R.Costa-i-Pujol

Creating an Environment for Successful Innovation - A Management Consultant's Perspective; K.Klokgieters & R.Chu

Conclusion; A.Brem & E.Viardot

Co-Creation: a new profession becomes mature

In 2010 Capgemini Consulting together with several co-creation promoters, started the Co-Creation Association.


‘It aims to further develop and enrich the knowledge on co-creation, in order to boost the development and professionalization of the discipline, both in business as in scientific research. It has recently become a Special Interest Group of the PDMA. Co-creation is defined as the act of involving customers and/or stakeholders in the innovation, marketing or value creation processes of private or public organizations. Co-creation has become increasingly popular with brands and organizations looking to source fresh ideas for developing new products or creating more engaging and authentic communication’. (source)

For the third year in the row, at November 8th 2012 the Co-Creation Awards will be announced. The 2012 edition of the Co-Creation Awards is set to benchmark excellence in co-creation for businesses and non-profit organizations, on a global scale. The Co-Creation Awards will celebrate successful implementation of co-creation projects and will reward the best use of co-creation for product, service or process innovation as well as marketing & communication in the private and public sectors. (source)

Winners of the first two years are: (2011) NikeID, Heineken Open Design Explorations, Philips Mediasuite and Share an Idea (video); (2010) DSB – The Movie, Sara Lee’s Open Innovation efforts, Ontwikkelzelf Lab by Verzekeruzelf, and Second Bloom by Heijmans.

The jury members of 2012 are:

Jeroen de Kempenaer (PDMA NL - Chair of the Co-Creation Awards 2012 jury); Frank Piller (professor of management and the director of the Technology & Innovation Management Group at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, one of Europe’s leading institutes of technology); Gaurav Bhalla (an innovation, strategy, and marketing professional with global experience as a multinational executive, business consultant, entrepreneur, and educator, author of the book “Collaboration and Co-Creation: New Platforms for Marketing and Innovation”); Jaco van Zijll Langhout (Principal Consultant Digital Transformation & Innovation at Capgemini Consulting. He is one of the founding fathers of the Co-creation Association and last year he has chaired the award).

Co-Creation Awards 2012

Date: 8th of November

Where: Capgemini Utrecht Netherlands

Time: 14.30 – 18.30

Click here to register

At 17:00 CET the awards will be granted. You can follow this via livestream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/co-creation-forum

Digital Transformation: a new Industrial Revolution will boost Innovation

Capgemini Consulting, the global strategy and transformation consulting brand of the Capgemini Group, has announced that its study conducted with the MIT Center for Digital Business -- ‘Digital Transformation: A road-map for billion-dollar organizations’ -- was ranked among the top 5 thought leadership publications of the last decade by Source*, following a thorough analysis of some 22,000 consulting reports globally.


Source, a leading market analyst firm for the consulting industry, assesses firms’ Thought Leadership performance through its White Space initiative. To celebrate 10 years of White Space, Source has identified five pieces of thought leadership from the last decade which have stood out and have been rated particularly highly. Capgemini Consulting was selected for a thought leadership research study revealing that only one third of large companies are succeeding in reshaping their business through digital technologies. The first phase of the study was published in November last year and phase two is due for launch later this year.

Didier Bonnet, one of the co-authors of the report and sponsor of Capgemini Consulting’s Digital Transformation programme, said: “We strongly believe that understanding the business implications of the new digital economy is at the top of the transformation agenda of business leaders. It is therefore very pleasing that Source has recognized the quality of our thinking on this critical topic.”

Fiona Czerniawska, Joint Managing Director, Source and Founder of White Space, said: “Capgemini Consulting’s work on digital transformation stands head-and-shoulders above other material in this space and will help put the firm in a strong position in this key market.”

White Space includes thought leadership from about 30 of the world’s leading consulting firms and provides detailed analysis. This analysis is updated regularly, giving up-to-date market intelligence on the state of the thought leadership market.

Innovation leadership study. Managing innovation: an insider perspective

Capgemini Consulting, the global strategy and transformation consulting brand of the Capgemini Group, in partnership with IESE Business School, the top ranked business school of the University of Navarra, today announced the findings of its annual global Innovation Leadership Study, examining innovation management strategies at organizations around the world. The study reveals that innovation leadership is becoming increasingly important, with 43 percent of respondents stating they have a formally accountable innovation executive in place, responsible for driving innovation, compared to just 33 percent last year. This rise of the ‘chief innovation officer’ suggests driving innovation is becoming a key priority for companies everywhere. However, despite this, the majority of companies (58 percent) still do not have an explicit innovation strategy in place, with most companies considered ‘innovation laggards’ (38 percent) and just 7 percent classed as ‘innovation leaders’.


The study, which surveyed over 260 innovation executives globally, suggests that while innovation is an emerging functional area within organizations, limited organizational strategies for driving innovation are impairing growth. Only 30 percent of respondents agree they have an effective organizational structure in place for driving innovation and less than a quarter (24 percent) believe innovation efforts within their companies are effectively aligned. This is mainly due to not having a formal organizational structure for innovation (45 percent) or a well-defined governance structure (45 percent) in place, or a lack of clear roles and responsibilities for innovation (40 percent). 39 percent of respondents also referenced the lack of an effective decision making process for innovation, largely due to not having a well defined process in place to prioritize and allocate time and funding to innovation projects

Download Report: Innovation Leadership Study
 
See reaction son Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine

Innovation Leadership Study 2011, Managing Innovation: An Insider Perspective

Dear Innovator,

We like to invite you to participate in a survey on how those leading and managing innovation in their organizations think about the innovation function.
We recognize that your time is precious, but please note that the survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete and that your opinions are very valuable to us.

To thank you for completing the survey, we will share with you the survey results before publication of the study findings. Also, we’ll make sure that you will receive a copy of the final report.

You can contribute to this year's innovation leadership study by completing a short survey at:



http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/IESE-CC_Innovation_Study_2011

By participating in this survey, you will be an important part of supporting this research. Your response is important to us.

If you have any questions about the survey or our research, please contact Freek Duppen at freek.duppen@capgemini.com.


Best regards,

Koen Klokgieters (VP Capgemini Consulting) & Paddy Miller (Professor IESE Business School)

Future Trends in the Value Chain shows Innovative Strategies for the New Decade

Every two years a collaborative platform of The Consumer Goods Forum, Capgemini, HP and Microsoft formulate key trends for the Value Chain. Together with top Executives from the Retail and Manufacturers Industry the third version is submitted.

In 2006 the first report 2016: A Vision of the Future Value Chain came out. The platform worked with 80 Executives of Global Organizations to collect the key trends for the industry. 2 global workshops are initiated (Utrecht, NL & Chicago, USA). The key message was: New Ways of Working Together in the Value Chain.

Two years later (2008) the second edition was born 2018: Succeeding in a Volatile Market. In this year already 130 Executives participated in several workshops: Global workshop (Utrecht, NL), Asian workshops: Hong Kong (Asian region), Mumbai (Indian market), Tokyo (Japanese market). The key trends pointed out: Changing society, Rising cost (and scarcity) of raw materials, Increasing awareness and action on sustainability, Growing consumer access to technology and Changing business models.

In 2010 the last report was fomulated 2020: Building Strategies for the New Decade. The number of participants in several workshops had been 200 Executives. Global workshop (Chantilly, FR), Regional workshop GS1 in Europe (Antwerp, BE) en diverse Country workshops: Australia (Melbourne), France (Paris), Netherlands (Utrecht), US (Chicago), Mexico (Mexico City). De most important trends from this year are: Make our business more sustainable (From niche to norm), Optimize a shared supply chain (Collaborate differently, compete differently); Engage with technology-enabled consumers (The consumer in the driver’s seat), Serve the health and wellbeing of consumers (Focus on quality of life). For more detailed outcome of the report please visit my slide share space.

What we see in the past 6 years is that Asia is rapidly becoming the key region for the new global innovative business strategies for corporate players. I like the discussion about the outcome of the Future value Chain reports during my Academic Guest Lectures or when I speak at international Innovation forums.
My experiences is that many organizations are talking about it but a few are acting upon it.

Koen Klokgieters