Traditional Strategy vs. Strategic Innovation

Traditional approaches

Strategic Innovation approach

Adopt a "present to future" orientation – takes today as a starting point

"Starts with the end in mind" – identifies long-term opportunities and then "bridges back to the present"

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7 Dimensions of Strategic Innovation

❶ A Managed Innovation Process – combining non-traditional and traditional approaches to business strategy... More

The Art and Discipline of Strategic Innovation

Strategic Innovation is the creation of growth strategies, new product categories, services or → business models that change the game and generate significant new value for customers and the corporation.

→ 3Bs of Strategic Creativity

Serendipitous vs. Strategic Innovation

Many organizations reply on serendipitous acts of creativity to foster innovation. Others take an ad hoc unstructured approach, which often results in uninspired incremental improvements or poor implementation.

Strategic innovation is a holistic systematic approach focused on generating beyond incremental, breakthrough or discontinuous innovations. Innovation becomes "strategic" when it is an intentional repeatable process that creates a significant difference in the value delivered to consumers, customers, partners and the corporation. A Strategic Innovation initiative generates a portfolio of breakthrough business growth opportunities using a disciplined yet creative process.  >>>

→ The Jazz of Innovation: 11 Guiding Principles

A Holistic, Multidisciplinary Framework

A → holistic, multidisciplinary framework enables organizations to take a strategic approach to innovation.

The framework combines non-traditional, creative approaches to business innovation with conventional strategy development models. It brings together perspectives from several disciplines: the non-traditional approaches to innovation found in the business creativity movement; traditional strategy consulting; the new product development perspective of industrial design firms; qualitative consumer/customer research; futures research found in think tanks and traditional scenario planning; and organizational development (OD) practices that examine the effectiveness of an organization’s culture, processes and structures.

Strategic Innovation takes the road less traveled – it challenges an organization to look beyond its established business boundaries and mental models and to participate in an open-minded, creative exploration of the realm of possibilities.

Some organizations may feel that seeking breakthroughs is too grandiose a goal, and that they would be content with “simply growing the business”. Experience shows, however, that focusing on the short-term typically yields only short-term results – while teams aspiring to seek significant breakthroughs will both identify “big ideas” and also generate closer-in, incremental ideas.

→ Blue Ocean vs. Red Ocean Strategy

Strategic Innovation is not characterized by mundane, incremental product extensions, the “me-too” business models of close followers, or band-aids for inefficient processes.

It does not consist of simple “facilitated creativity sessions and brainstorming new ideas”. It is not based on the linear principles of traditional strategic planning which extrapolate the past in an attempt to predict the future. It does not result in “pure blue sky”.

Instead, it spans a journey of inquiry and activity – from creative inspiration at the ambiguous “fuzzy front end” through the detailed requirements of successful execution that lead to business impact.

Strategic Innovation calls for a holistic approach that operates on multiple levels. First, it blends non-traditional and traditional approaches to business strategy, deploying the practices of “Industry Foresight”, “Consumer/Customer Insight” and “Strategic Alignment” as a foundation, and supplementing them with conventional consulting models.

Second, it combines two seemingly paradoxical mindsets: expansive, visionary thinking that imaginatively explores long-term possibilities; and pragmatic, down-to-earth implementation activities that lead to short-term, measurable business impact.