How can you innovate without disrupting your core business operations?

To achieve the goal of innovation without disrupting core operations, we'll implement a phased approach. We'll start by building robust operational systems that enhance efficiency and reliability within our core business. After establishing this strong foundation, we'll embark on thorough research to identify innovative opportunities. To bring these innovations to life, we'll carefully assemble a dedicated team, ensuring that their efforts align with our strategic goals while safeguarding the continuity of our core business functions. This methodical process will allow us to adapt and evolve without compromising our established operations.

Understanding your core competencies is critical, not just for innovation, but evaluation risk of all investments. If, for example, you are a B2B Manufacturer, and want to move towards the higher margin B2C Services. It may sound simple, but those are two significant competence differences to contend with. The same applies to Innovation. Your core competencies can define the box and pinpoint areas of value that can be exploited, while cautioning you from areas that are not within your competencies. That said, you also don't want to disrupt your core business needlessly. Define the box and proceed with an eye towards value and ensure you can support operationally.

Learn it. Do it. Teach it. Sell it. Be the best at what you are the best at. And for the rest, hire smart people to take control of areas you're not proficient in.

Focus on the core, and grow through adjacencies. Not having a clear understanding of your core and removing significant resources for it to innovate in another opportunity can lead to poor outcomes. This is the one true north phrase most companies need to follow. Innovation is key, but understanding what are you good at, and what drives most of your P&L is key to understanding how can you push for innovation without disrupting your core business.

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Having worked with non profits for some time, I believe it makes sense to consider the likelihood of how innovations can secure grants and donations. Horizon 1 projects closely aligned to existing funded programs have the highest likelihood of grant funding. Horizon 2 adjacent innovations may require making a case for funding an expansion of services. Horizon 3 transformational innovations will need the strongest case made to donors despite higher risks. When building their portfolio, non-profits should include a mix of horizons based on strategy. But the allocation may prioritize more Horizon 1 and 2 innovations with clearer funding paths. Assessing the ability to sell an innovation’s potential to grant-makers can inform portfolio.

A portfolio approach to innovation involves managing a collection of innovative initiatives, much like a financial portfolio. Each initiative has its own level of risk and potential reward, and by diversifying your innovation efforts, you can balance these factors to minimize disruption to your core operations.

I have found in order for the portfolio approach to be impactful, you need to have alignment on a proposed taxonomy that considers all work, not just revenue generating. As an example, we organize our portfolio's based on "Categories of Spend." At a high level the work is broken down between Product Development and Running the Engine (or keep the lights on). The categories break down further from there, i.e. New Products, Enhancements, Maintenance/bug fixes etc...

Establishing a rich and well-balanced innovation portfolio is key to protecting, growing & transforming businesses. Key benefits: 1. Aligns risk mitigation & controls to innovation scope, for e.g. a sandbox approach may be best placed to manage "open innovation" projects with new 3rd parties for the more transformative use cases 2. Promotes incremental & predictable improvements to core business driven by innovation, while ensuring innovation stays close rather than in conflict with traditional product/services management 3. Promotes application of a responsible innovation culture across the organisation, helping the people involved keep pace with changing market dynamics and the ever-evolving definition of "what is innovative today?".

Innovation is like adding exciting flavors to ice cream without upsetting the ice cream truck. It's about enhancing and growing without causing chaos in your main business. Balance creativity with stability for a successful recipe of progress.

Culture is everything, and one of the areas that is hardest to change. As a CEO, don't think you can just dictate it and it will happen overnight. I have seen many CEOs try but very few succeed unless the company is already poised. The law of unintended consequences is also very relevant. People will do what you reward them to do, and its corollary, people will NOT do what you punish or not reward them to do. Be careful and clear to get the desired results.

Core Competence is most important aspect of any company. But Out of box thinking is an important factor found in only 1% of Individuals. By Organizing Brainstorming sessions in Organizations it is easier to Identify such talents. Instead, they are left without Attention. Energy to be used in a Constructive direction. This can give Top contributors to Organization without disruption.

Fear of failure is a barrier whether a business is now starting out or if it is established. At the end of the day, we start businesses to present an innovative solution to a problem so we cannot be inhibited by fear of failure. The structure and implementation of your business operations is guided heavily by the leadership, which in turn, impacts the culture of the organization. The leadership style of the business owner, CEO, and other C-Level executives how team members share and make revisions to their innovative ideas. Additionally, once ideas are implemented, the leader's leadership style will impact every step of the experimentation process, especially how results are obtained and analyzed.

When experimenting, it’s important to keep a small sample size so as to minimise the disruption to existing operations. I remember the incident which happened at a company I was working for. To move the vendor communication from WhatsApp (60+vendors) we made a smart system using google sheets and google forms. However even in the pilot phase of just 10 vendors the sheet didn’t have the capability to handle the volume and used to crash. We then found better systems. But this experiment with a small sample size allowed us to identify the gaps and work on fixing it.

Fostering a culture of embracing failure is key. It leads to uncovering intriguing opportunities and deeper learning. Removing fear leaves room for innovation. Launch with MVPs, iterate based on feedback, and pivot quickly. Early failures offer valuable lessons without risking larger initiatives.

External partners, such as startups, research institutions, or other companies, bring diverse perspectives and expertise to the table. They can help you explore new opportunities and develop innovative solutions while your core business operations continue smoothly.

When exploring partnerships to boost innovation, it’s crucial to involve those who ultimately benefit from your offerings. Rather than only collaborating with entities that provide complementary capabilities, also engage the communities, customers, and populations your innovation aims to serve. They hold th most valuable insights on real needs and desired solutions. By co-designing and co-creating with end beneficiaries, you can develop innovations that truly align with their wants and values. This human-centric collaboration leads to offerings with greater adoptability and impact.

Taking from my own professional trajectory, collaboration with external entities has proven transformative. In numerous projects, I've witnessed firsthand the amplified potential when complementing our in-house capabilities with those of external partners. Whether it's tapping into groundbreaking technologies from startups or gaining novel perspectives from academia, these partnerships have expanded our horizons. That said, selecting the right partners and intellectual assets has been crucial. innovation flourishes at the intersection of diverse expertise. We have multiple such Initiaves at GrowthJockey like YLP “Young Leadership Program” , “Deep Prep” , “PMO” and “Innovation Wing” etc all these have proven to be significantly rewarding.

Reflecting on my professional journey, I've consistently seen the immense value of monitoring and measuring performance in driving innovation. In one notable role, by closely observing metrics like customer satisfaction and market share, we adjusted our strategy, resulting in significant user engagement. Transparently sharing these outcomes, both successes and challenges, cultivated a motivated and united team. Recognizing progress, while always pushing for greater heights, has been key in my experience.

Monitoring and measuring your performance is like having a compass on your innovation journey. It helps you stay on course by providing insights into how your innovation initiatives are affecting your core operations.

For us non-profits, targeted monitoring and evaluation of innovation is vital. Metrics is tied directly to our mission and intended project impact on communities we work with. This includes tracking metrics like: individuals (m/f/d) served, sustainability, activity completion, service acceptance and completion rates or quality improvements. With our dependancy on grants, we have toimplement strong ME systems based on donor requirements. For Profit organisations surely could learn from such detailed systems.

Jon Kotter talks about a Dual Operating System that facilitates the creative tension necessary to maintain business operations (OS1) & champion innovation (OS2). Reference Book: XLR8 by John Kotter