I think we can all agree that innovation is a buzzword today. It seems like everything is an innovation and everyone is an innovator. Yet, innovation means different things to different people, depending on their perspective or profession. People often talk about innovation being a good idea and a company is judged by the number of patents filed. Is that innovation?
Let me take a moment to share with you my definition of innovation and ROI as it pertains to our business and clients.
To me, innovation is transforming ideas into market-leading, practical products – products that are affordable and impact life and society every day. Innovation for innovation sake is wasted investment. Innovation must be useful to a company’s target audience not just be a ‘cool’ idea that will hopefully find an audience. As for patents, they must be monetized so they add value to a company’s bottom line and give the company a competitive-edge.
Innovation is also about identifying new markets, improving existing systems and product evolution. Given the recent economy, many companies chose to invest in new market opportunities for existing products or expanded into emerging countries. Improving products is just as important. Often, you might be able to solve a problem by repurposing concepts from another industry or even learning from nature, a growing field called biomimicry. Despite the Latin translation, innovation doesn’t have to be something new.
But most importantly, innovation has to be repeatable and sustainable. It’s not about one brilliant idea but being able to sustain the product innovation process. And, innovation happens across the company not just in the R&D department. Today’s innovation community includes new business development, strategic planning and competitive analysis teams, among others.
Given our economy, innovation must result in revenue growth and increase market share within an accelerated timeframe. Therefore the innovation agenda and ROI must be tightly integrated with a company’s corporate goals.
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
Posted by Mark Atkins 
