The following articles are the Top 3 Innovation Insights this week (ww5) with a brief snapshot summary of their strategic importance to your firm.

Don’t Rush Innovation: What to Learn from the Uber Business Model (CBR)

Snapshot: New companies now aspire to be the “Uber of _____” (fill in the blank) because this unicorn leader has blazed a trail with a disruptive business model. Neil Sholay, Head of Digital at Oracle, discusses what the challenges are for tech companies and non-tech companies to innovate.

Strategic Impact: Given the rapid pace of innovation, well-established companies and emerging ones need to determine what it would take to accelerate digital transformation: how “an organization starts to use digital technologies – not for technology’s sake – but to incorporate them into their strategy and build new business models enabled by these technologies.” Companies need to balance R&D investment with the need to prove the market value to their customers. Click here to read the full article.

[Source: Forbes]

Snapshot: Although China is behind the USA in certain technologies (SaaS, AR/VR and healthcare), there are areas that US companies can learn from and learn about China: mobile payments, travel and O2O (online to offline commerce). DJI and WeChat are only two examples of China- based companies that are leading their industries in their respective domains (drones and social networks).

Strategic Impact: Connie Chan, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, cites 4 mindsets that can help US companies innovate and compete with China-based companies worldwide:

1. Rethink the definition of “innovation.”
2. Rethink “scale” and “scaling.”
3. Rethink the nature of competition.
4. Rethink what “local” advantage means.

The complete article is available here.

[Source: (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)]

Snapshot: The biggest innovations often start out small. Micro-innovations take less time, less R&D and can quickly glean market feedback to iterate toward success. This approach also allows large companies to diversity across different technologies and/or markets without putting all the eggs in one basket. However, improving collaboration is the key to micro-innovation.

Strategic Impact: There are several ways which your team can pursue micro-innovations to develop a sustained competitive advantage:

• Facilitate brainstorming across departments.
• Invest in employee training that aligns with strategic objectives.
• Encourage everyone to speak up to develop ideas.

To read about other ways to spark micro-innovations through collaboration, click here.

Are there other articles you’ve read recently that you would consider highlighting? Let us know via innovation@18.219.185.187.

If you’re interested in how to provide innovation training and/or foster an entrepreneurial mindset in your company, contact us.

[Ed Valdez is Vice President of Global Business Strategy at G51.]