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

How to Close the Gap on Innovation (Oracle)

Snapshot: The biggest challenge to filling a business funnel with innovations is finding those that are achievable and align with strategic objectives. So every company has a gap that needs to be filled between the corporate strategy set by executives and the teams responsible for identifying, developing and executing new innovations. By utilizing a process to fail fast and seeking ways to develop a ROI on innovation, companies can develop collaborative ways that will close the innovation gap and avoid banking on the wrong ideas.

Strategic Impact: According to Gartner, growth is the number one priority for innovation. Only 50% of companies are satisfied with their innovation investment. Furthermore, 84% of companies don’t know if they’re investing in the right things (source: Kalypso/Oracle). Since competition is moving at an ever increasing rate, cloud-based technologies can help close the innovation gap in several ways. Here are is a 3-step process to close the gap:

1. Map out your current innovation process and define your vision of the process to align current and new investments to business strategies and retain visibility to react when investments don’t execute to plan.
2. Identify areas of greatest need and provide key stakeholders the essential information they need to fill the innovation pipeline with a steady stream of high yielding ideas.
3. Evaluate whether a cloud-based Innovation Management solution could help your business.

For more information about closing the innovation gap, you can read the full article here.

 

Five Reasons Why Hackathons Don’t Foster Innovation (TechVibes)

Snapshot: Hackathons have become popular for major healthcare and financial companies in an attempt to foster innovation and business growth. They are poised to grow for other vertical markets. A recent study shows, however, that only 5-10% of hackathon winners ever see fruition to meeting end user needs.

 

Strategic Impact: The greatest challenge is not finding good ideas, but fostering a corporate culture where innovations can be nurtured to grow and succeed. The full article points out an alternative to hackathons (read here). The article does not imply that hackathons are not useful, yet it also acknowledges the five reasons why hackathons (in and of themselves) don’t foster innovation:

1. They don’t provide access to customers
2. They don’t embrace failure.
3. They get stuck in organizational silos.
4. They can’t navigate politics
5. They don’t work within budget constraints.

 

Why Innovation is King in South Korea (DW)

Snapshot: In a span of one generation, Korea has transformed from a poor agricultural society to one of the world’s top innovators. Yet can it keep up the pace? According to OECD (Org. for Economic Cooperation and Development), Korea spends the highest percentage of its GDP (4.29%) on R&D than any other advanced economy. Yet there are sociodemographic factors that may challenge their growth rate of innovation.

 

 

Strategic Impact: No matter how far or fast a country or company has innovated, it’s important to constantly to adapt to changing times. Competition and societal factors such as an aging population and perceived inequalities in the workforce are two factors affecting economic uncertainty. One of the key challenges that all corporations are faced with is: how can leaders close the gap between mismatched skills taught in schools and those needed in the labor market? The article shares more about the challenges 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 by clicking here.

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