Marketers have notorious fallen short on product innovations. This has several reasons. One of them is the “jobs theory” by which once typical jobs are assessed, it emerges that most people do safe duties to simply survive at their work, rather than innovate. At startups, owners can experiment. Even failures are tolerated to in fact learn new lessons from, but this security disappears in big organizations with specialized marketing teams. A lot of time employees are hunting for new jobs, so they only do things told to them by their seniors. Marketing research conducted by McKinsey confirms that a staggering 94% of those polled are unsatisfied with their level of product launches. Things could now change as data may weed out marketing malpractices. Due to the huge quantities of data being mined and then assessed, a kind of standardization to product development processes is being observed. So what used to be hit-and-miss innovation can to some extent be subject to conformity.

Source:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/marketers-often-miss-mark-product-innovations/

Most business leaders want their team members to innovate yet, few actually create conditions suitable for such creativity to take place. A study conducted by the O.C. Tanner Co. in the USA, UK, Germany, India and Canada revealed that majority of lower level employees feel they lack the most important resources- money, support and staff- that can facilitate business innovation. The executive and management levels have more of these comforts but should indulge in some sort of engagement with the non-management levels to find out whether they may have any ground breaking ideas. They need to self-reflect beyond the rhetoric spoken whether any actual action has taken place. It would not take a massive chunk of funding, but some resources may be allotted even at the non-manager levels to induce creativity.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/02/why-your-employees-dont-innovate?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date#

Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta has built its reputation as one of the most innovative organizations in the world. It has designed the September 11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan, a reindeer observatory in Norway, a museum of modern art in San Francisco and revived the Alexandria Library in Egypt. Some important business innovation lessons can be learnt from them such as having multi-disciplinary teams to solve problems while also gauging external experts. They follow a flat hierarchy with even physical settings at the office geared towards such ideal. The metrics designed to evaluate performances are unique allowing designers to understand the value of their work. There is creative chaos in the final designs which can be interpreted in different ways. Good news is roundly celebrated. All offices from Oslo to Adelaide are fitted with modern prototyping capabilities. There is detailed analysis on what products or services get really used up. Across all Snohetta’s designs, a sense of contrast is encouraged. Creativity is inspired by the management using a variety of ways such as happy hours, lunch presentations, informal parties or internal podcasts for corporate training purposes. Conventional notions are challenged such as a belief that “less can be more”. The target is well researched on while eliminating unnecessary aspects. Before launch of any product or service to the market, it is thoroughly tested and this process gets repeated even post launch. In order to get the ‘wow’ factor, cross-pollination of ideas globally is encouraged.

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2016/12/02/17-important-innovation-lessons-from-one-of-the-worlds-great-architecture-firms/#773e3b2338af

Large firms are typically known to fare poorly on business innovation metrics. This could be due to variety of reasons such as complacency in their existing success or fear of cannibalizing product that is doing well. Some feel that perhaps they do try to innovate but fail at it due to antiquated methods being followed. However, a study conducted has clearly confirmed that quite often older, big firms do have the inclination towards creative impulses yet are held back due to wrong choices or stages. In order to excel at such innovations, it is essential to be a technological leader. A notch below may lead to desperation for developing the ‘next big thing’, in pursuit of which failures may abound. That is why it is necessary that firms realize this may not be the right approach, instead an analysis must be made on reasons for failing to innovate. Innovations are expensive and often led to failures, but such failures must not be punished as they discourage the innovators. Instead companies such as Apple and Google have created an atmosphere where risk taking is encouraged, and failures are used as learning tools.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/10/when-big-firms-are-most-likely-to-innovate

As per a study on global innovation carried out by management consulting giant PwC, there are five skills that have been identified that all innovative leaders possess in abundance. They manage risk much better than others. This includes documentation and planning for upcoming risks, starting straight away and learning along the way rather than thorough thinking at the beginning, avoidance of over analysis of business issues and mitigates risks before they arise. Such leaders demonstrate constant curiosity at the workplace by testing their own knowledge and skills. They create time for developmental activities and stimulate the ideation of innovations. These leaders are courageous and proactive as they do not wait for changes to occur, but foresee them. They seize opportunities whenever they present themselves. Innovative leaders maintain the decorum of the corporate strategy as they only put their focus on aspects which affect the organization holistically, avoiding all pretence of micromanagement. They learn from mistakes and conduct SWOT analysis to gauge organization’s knowledge and capability levels.

Source:https://hbr.org/2016/12/the-5-skills-that-innovative-leaders-have-in-common

Some of Wall Street’s innovation lab activities have been compiled together. To start off the list there is the office of BNP Paribas in Manhattan which has brick walls and exposed ceiling allowing natural light to come in. It also offers free drinks and snacks. Barclays allows co-working for fin-tech company Rise in its premises to let its own employees have a feel of the cutting edge new trends taking shape. It enables a system of open innovation at the location. The Barclays Accelerator, which is a management training programme for fin-tech startups, will also be hosted by Rise. JP Morgan Chase has started off its new technology hub in Manhattan. Foosball can be easily played by employees there. Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon Corp. has a new digital transformation strategy so they have set up innovation labs across Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh and London plus at Pune and Chennai in India. They rooms are colour coded to elicit business innovation among the employees. Goldman Sachs has developed its own fin-tech arm known as Marcus at its headquarters. They have poached talent from firms such as PayPal, Alphabet and the Lending Club.

Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2016-12-05/a-look-inside-wall-street-s-innovation-labs?cmpid=GP.Markets

While most companies realize that business innovations are necessary to grow and survive, few of them are proactively acting to develop such changes. A few principles have been compiled which when followed can lead to a culture of innovators springing from any organization. First of all, vision documents alone are not enough. Innovators need the help of co-conspirators who can execute disruptions at the ground level. It must be recognized that innovations can arise from anywhere at any level. In fact, rarely do they trickle down from the top. Innovators need to leverage their passions and interest areas to develop ground-breaking changes. For a healthy environment of ideation, cross-functional teams are essential. Innovators must be supported top-down with the corporate strategy clearly laying down the need for parallel experimentation along with routine monetary tasks. They also need the backup of company resources. Executive coaching can help such innovators as the latter require mentorship more than supervision. Enlgihgtened organizations such as TED and Netflix actively encourage their employees to take risks, failures notwithstanding. Each failure is seen as part of the learning curve. Those that will imbibe such principles in the right manner, are more likely to transform into digital companies.

Source:https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/24/seven-principles-to-ignite-a-culture-of-innovators/