The Zurich Innovation Championship: Zebras – Not Unicorns – for Profitable and Scalable Corporate Innovation
How Zurich Insurance Group uses its annual Innovation Championship to harness the innovative potential of startups for long term success. Innovation at Zurich Insurance Group is characterized by a mindset that embraces challenge head-on. As Mattia Visigalli, Innovation Consultant – Group Strategy and Innovation at Zurich Insurance Group,…
Innovative Strategies for Effective R&D Budgeting
Dreaming big and balancing the books by taking a different approach to R&D budgeting at Siemens Energy. Imagine you have a piggy bank. Every day, you put a dollar into it, saving for something special. Now, imagine that something special is a groundbreaking innovation that could change the world. But here’s the catch: you don’t know how much…
Sustainable Innovations – How To Close the Say-Do Gap
Consumers increasingly express a preference for sustainable products, yet a gap remains between stated intentions and actual purchasing behavior. 80% of shoppers say they want sustainable products and 90% say they are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products. But only 7% actually buy sustainable products. The path to bridging this gap…
Building Capacity for Breakthrough Innovation
Breakthrough innovations are characterized by their ability to disrupt or redefine the competitive landscape, often rendering existing solutions obsolete. They represent a radical departure from existing products, services, or processes, paving the way for new markets, industries, and value networks. It contrasts sharply with incremental…
It’s Time To Upgrade Your Innovation Management System
After the Covid-19 pandemic, many corporate innovation units felt a sense of relief. Companies were optimistic, innovation budgets grew, and there was an increased appetite for out-of-the-box innovation. However, the business environment for corporate innovators has since shifted, and they are now being asked to do more with less. This (economic)…
Leveraging Venture Building for Long-Term Returns
Corporates often grapple with the “Innovator’s Dilemma,” where the gravitational pull of the core business’s existing processes, incentive structures, and risk models stifles the pursuit of groundbreaking innovation. The dilemma is further exacerbated by corporate governance systems designed for operational excellence…
Creating Innovators, Not Just Innovations
At Chick-fil-A, innovation is not merely a process, but a culture deeply embedded within the organization’s fabric. Their approach is to develop the innovation mindset at all levels, starting with leadership and gradually influencing the entire organization. Michael McCathren, a senior innovation leader at Chick-fil-A, recently sat with…
Proving the Value of Innovation: How Innovation Departments Measure Their Impact
Companies are increasingly focusing on quantifying the return on investment (ROI) of their innovation initiatives. In an environment where results and returns are closely scrutinized, as innovation teams we must navigate the delicate balance between pursuing long-term, transformative initiatives and delivering short-term wins that affirm their…
Corporate Innovation in 2024
Whilst innovation remains a top priority for every CEO, we have again witnessed recently that when markets are uncertain and costs need to be cut, the innovation function is also amongst the first to be impacted. As a function, we’re still figuring out how we contribute to our organizations’ top and bottom line in sustainable and scalable ways.…
Turn Ideas Into Outcomes: A Framework for Maturing Your Innovation Portfolio
Innovation activity is at an all-time high. From idea competitions and startup incubators to virtual whiteboards and design thinking workshops, there is no shortage of mechanisms for brainstorming what’s possible in an organization. It’s exciting to have so many ideas to work with. But what happens next? Eventually, you need to identify which…
The Failure of Innovation Training
Innovation departments are continuing to fail. Of course, innovation projects are supposed to fail in great numbers, but the idea of a corporate innovation department itself is under tremendous pressure. The macroeconomic climate is battering companies around and leading to budget cuts across the board. Companies are focusing on the core business…
Introducing the Shift Towards Autonomous Innovation
Innovation is undergoing a tectonic shift. As AI advances, we find ourselves heading towards a new era — one where innovation is not just constant but autonomous, as Board of Innovation's founder Philippe de Ridder explains below. From Design Thinking to Autonomous Innovation In the 1990s, design thinking emerged, prioritizing empathy and…
