Deliberate, Diverse Innovation Portfolios: Betting on Uncertainty
Stakeholders demand results. CFOs ask for projections. Yet innovation teams often find themselves pitching bold ideas with little more than a business model canvas that doesn’t fit a quarterly earnings report. As Tristan Kromer, Founder and CEO of Kromatic, puts it: “At some point, somebody with a calculator is going to ask how much money…
How To Create Buy-In Without Selling Your Idea
You don’t ever have to make your case. You don’t have to beg, coerce or plead with people to join your movement. You don’t need to host a massive event to announce the start of the transformation. There is only one thing you need to do… create momentum. Invite the right people to your movement at the beginning. Then work with those people…
Building “Advantaged” Ventures: A New Growth Lever (For the Right Problem)
As a corporate innovator, you’ve likely faced the formidable challenge of solving complex problems with limited resources, slow-moving processes, or a lack of entrepreneurial flexibility. Turning to startup partnerships might seem like the perfect solution to drive fresh energy and innovation into your organization. But too often, these…
Challenge-Driven Innovation: A Guide to Unlocking Fresh Solutions
For years, a global soda company struggled to perfect the bubble size in its carbonated drinks. Despite significant internal R&D efforts, the breakthrough came from an unexpected source: a metals expert in India specializing in industrial foaming techniques. By reframing the challenge and seeking external expertise, they found a solution they…
Real Options: A Smarter Way to Fund Innovation
Innovation thrives on uncertainty, but traditional financial models often struggle to account for its unpredictable nature. The net present value (NPV) method, a staple for evaluating investments, falters when applied to high-risk, uncertain innovation projects. In a recent Innov8rs Learning Labs Session, Claus Hirzmann, Co-founder and CEO of…
Good Team, Bad Team: And Why it Matters in Innovation
Have you ever pitched a brilliant idea only to have it shot down before it even had a chance to breathe? You’re not alone. Many innovation teams face resistance—not because their ideas lack merit but because they fail to gain support from other departments like finance, engineering, or sales. Why does this happen so often in organizations filled…
Mastering Portfolio Management for Impact
Innovation is a primary growth driver in consumer health, so why do so many promising initiatives fail to deliver strategic impact? Innovators know that new products, formulations, and market expansions are essential for staying ahead. Yet, despite significant R&D investments, many organizations struggle to turn their innovation pipeline into…
Startup or Spinout? Choosing the Right Path
The stakes are high for corporate leaders tasked with bringing new innovations to market. Choosing between building a venture internally or seeking external partnerships is a strategic decision and critical to long-term success. Yet many leaders hesitate, unsure of the risks, trade-offs, and hidden challenges of either path. How can you determine…
The Impact of AI on Innovation Teams
What if AI could automate your entire innovation process, turning months of work into hours? What if you could use AI agents to replace expensive and time-consuming research, ideation, and validation phases? And what if, in doing so, it made your own job obsolete? What used to take innovation teams months and cost corporations hundreds of…
Building a Culture of Innovation From the Ground Up at SHV Energy
Despite having strategies, methodologies, and even innovation teams in place, many organizations find that their innovation efforts fail to gain real traction. Employees remain disengaged, initiatives feel isolated, and innovation is seen as an abstract concept rather than a core business driver. Culture plays a critical role in making innovation…
Why Most Venture Studios Fail (And How You Can Succeed)
Picture yourself in a pool next to an Olympic swimmer. You’re doing the same strokes, pushing just as hard, but they glide through the water at an entirely different speed. The difference? World-class execution. Elliott Parker, CEO of Alloy Partners, had this experience swimming alongside Olympic greats. “What I realized in the moment was,…
Towards a Sustainable Innovation Portfolio
Organizations striving to integrate sustainability into their core strategies face a common challenge. How can innovation be effectively connected with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a structured and measurable way? In a recent Innov8rs Learning Labs Session, Martijn Antonisse, Group Sustainability Director Portfolio Steering at…
