9/3 Innovation strategy. Like the sound of it, but what does it mean?
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Consultants are always eager to tag their work with the most exciting and promising terms. Anything to puzzle the minds of the discussion partner. Let’s get rid of that prejudice and make sure this topic of interest, ‘innovation strategy’ is tagged appropriately. |
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| Here are parts of what Wikipedia has to say about innovation and strategy. Wikipedia may not be the strongest source for definitions, but earlier discussions on definitions proved that longwinding discussions are not all that fruitful. That, plus the fact that it is no exact science, is reason enough to take the easy route here. |
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“Innovation is a new way of doing something or "new stuff that is made useful". It may refer to incremental and emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. Following Schumpeter (1934), contributors to the scholarly literature on innovation typically distinguish between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully in practice. In many fields, such as the arts, economics and government policy, something new must be substantially different to be innovative. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.” (Wikipedia, italics added) |
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| “A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. The word strategy has military connotations, because it derives from the Greek word for general. Strategy is distinct from tactics. In military terms, tactics is concerned with the conduct of an engagement while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. In other words, how a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy.” (Wikipedia, italics added) |
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| So let’s keep it simple. Innovation refers to activities to make a positive change. Strategy is the plan of action, linking the different engagements or tactics. There you go: innovation strategy is the overarching plan, connecting the various innovative activities that need to make the positive change required for achieve your goals. | ||
