The Science Behind Breakthrough Innovation

 The science of innovation management is to manage innovation life cycle in a systematic manner that provides sustained competitive advantage.

Innovation is to have a new perspective on things. Innovation is what leads to differentiation. Being able to innovate or close is being able to think and create new things based on the business or the customer’s needs. The goals of innovation, especially breakthrough innovation, should focus on people, the long-term trends and business vision. Innovation is both art and science. it’s about creating something new or better based on a combination or modification of previous attributes or approaches. Every organization is different, every innovation initiative is also unique, there is no one size fits all formula. Innovation is a process which can be managed, In this regard, innovation is more science than art.

Breakthrough Innovation is better with greater ROI but with much greater risk: Breakthrough innovation is often disruptive and will change your organization or even the industry in many fields. Scientifically, innovation is the mechanism through which you grow and evolve something to something great. Perhaps you need new technologies, new processes, new customers, new knowledge or may be a new business model. All those radical changes make breakthrough innovation very risky, but on the other side, you’ll get the great opportunities to achieve a high return on investment by providing new products to delight customers or generating new business models to revolutionize the industry.  Besides the artistic side of idea-generation, to manage breakthrough innovation and control risks systematically, the scientific processes should be in place. Due to the increasing level of complexity and exponential growth of information and rapid changes,it’s important to note that within the organization, innovation is rarely an individual action, rather, it’s a team effort, and often it’s a collaborative effort across multiple organizational silos, and it needs to be managed systematically to improve its success rate.

Innovation follows basic rules, which are adapted depending on the company's ambition and situation: When talking about innovation, either breakthrough innovation or incremental innovation, it's not purely about technological advancements but also about different propositions or approaches to solve either emerging or existing problems, with customers as the center of innovations. Every organization needs to develop tailored innovation principles, scientific methodologies, and the best practices by leveraging effective technologies, tools or platforms and apply them wisely with the expertise to really add value or drive progress and develop the organizational level innovation competency. The radical and market-changing breakthrough innovations are specifically enabled by systems-level specifications of all the relevant products or services interactions currently and potentially tied to the targeted products or services. Breakthrough innovation requires cross functional senior leadership commitment and a more thorough process to prototype, filter, test in a real world scenario, There is full of science behind the magic of breakthrough innovation.

Information is the most time intensive piece of breakthrough innovation and Information Systems are the backbone for running a high-innovative organization: The bulk of data, methods, and approaches involved as well as the complexity of processes encountered speak in favor of scientific approach to innovation management. Managing innovation, especially breakthrough innovation is a differentiated business competency which cannot be built overnight. You have to systematically develop it and fine-tune  it as the strategic business differentiator. The information system as the backbone of innovation management helps to optimize the usage of information and refine information into knowledge and business insight. Highly innovative businesses today can abstract business insight and deliver innovative solutions to meet customers ’needs and fit the growth perspective of the business. Technically, Innovation Management is an interdisciplinary approach which stands in between management, economy, psychology, sociology, and law, not speaking about disciplines that are related to technologies implemented by the particular innovation.

Breakthrough innovation is a radical new approach that leaves competitions behind in some way, makes a leap of the business to the next level of the growth cycle and achieves the high return on investment. The science of innovation management is to manage innovation life cycle in a systematic manner that provides sustained competitive advantage.

Posted in: Innovation