The Four Types of Corporate Innovation

The Four Types of Corporate InnovationIt seems everyone is talking about corporate innovation these days. Erkki Liikanen, the European Commissioner in charge of the Information Society and Enterprise Directorates General can hardly open his mouth without speaking of European business’s need to be more innovative. Nevertheless, to look at all corporate innovation as being the same kind of innovation is dangerous. Defining categories of innovation not only clarifies the kinds of innovation necessary, but also points out approaches for promoting appropriate innovation within the organization.

Corporate innovation can be divided into four categories:

  1. Customer-oriented innovation
  2. Product innovation
  3. Process innovation
  4. Strategic innovation

Let’s look at each.

1. Customer-oriented innovation

“The customer comes first.” This is just as true with innovation as with anything else in business. If you cannot serve your customers cleverly, you might as well not bother with innovation at all.

Customer oriented innovation refers to all aspects of corporate-customer interaction, including: marketing, sales, delivery, customer service and everything in between. Although this comprises a diverse range of activities from advertising to after-sales service, the focus should always be the same: how to better serve your customers. Better advertising can provide more information to customers as well as remind existing customers that they made the right choice by your products. Better after-sales service can make all the difference between a making a single sale and developing a long-term relationship of multiple sales.

These days, as there is less and less to differentiate one product from another, customer oriented innovation is one area where your firm can demonstrate a real lead over the competition.

Moreover, every act of product or strategic innovation generally requires customer oriented innovation to ensure innovations are successfully delivered to the customers.

2. Product innovation

When most people think of corporate innovation, they think of product innovation, in particular, launching that stunning new product that brings in billions of Euro (or dollars or pounds or yen…), makes them industry leaders and puts them on top of Ingvar Kamprad and Bill Gates in the Fortune list of wealthy individuals.

While such innovation is nice, it is equally, if not more, important to solicit incremental product innovation from your company. Small improvements in your product are not only easier to come by, but can help keep you one step ahead of the competition. Moreover, small improvements are easier to sell and generally do not require big changes in your business.

But when that big idea for a radically new product – that will knock the competition’s socks off – comes, be sure you have the means of recognizing it (previous issues of Report 103 have looked at big innovations that big companies have made and lost because they did not recognize what they had invented).

A radically new product also demands an innovative marketing approach that will allow you to bring the product to market successfully. Introducing a radically new product to your customers is in large part about educating your customers to your product and helping them realize how much they need or want your product (see 1. Customer-oriented innovation above).

3. Process innovation

Process innovation may sound comparatively dull, but it is the bread and butter of corporate innovation. In most large companies lots of people are involved in internal processes that allow the company to run smoothly and legally. These are the people in middle management, human resources, accounting, finance, administration, and the like. In general, they recognize processes that do not work well and have ideas about how to make those processes more efficient. Sometimes, of course, they are wrong. But often they are right. Their ideas improve efficiency and help companies save money. If a company has operational expenses of 1 billion euros annually and an accountant comes up with an idea that shaves costs by 0.5%, it translates into a savings off 5 million euros – nothing to sneeze at. Likewise, 1,000 employees each with ideas worth 10,000 euros in cost savings each will save the company 10 million euros.

4. Strategic innovation

Strategic innovation is rare because it is about fundamental changes in how a company operates. And in a large company, that is about the most difficult task of all. Strategic innovation requires an innovative CEO with vision and determination. Jack Welch transformed GE from an old fashioned American industrial company into a powerful global services company.

Jorma Ollila transformed Nokia from being a Finnish conglomerate with a forestry background into becoming the world’s leading mobile telephone manufacturer.

While Messrs Welch’s and Ollila’s innovations involved all of four kinds of innovations, successful strategic innovation was central to their success.

Strategic innovation may not necessarily come from CEOs. But visionary CEOs are nevertheless necessary for implementing strategic innovation across the enterprise.

General comments about corporate innovation

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is to assume that only people in relevant departments can provide innovative ideas for a particular kind of innovation. Believing that only the research department can have ideas about product innovation or that only management can have ideas about process innovation is wrong.

If top management of any company were to place listening devices in the staff canteen or the staff’s favorite pub, they would quickly discover…

  • that everyone in the company has ideas about all aspects of the company.
  • that many of those ideas are well thought out.
  • that the people with ideas come from all divisions and all levels of the corporate hierarchy.
  • that many of those ideas are worth good money to the company.

In order to tap into this wide-spread creativity, management should create diverse teams to handle innovation related tasks as well as provide tools, such as innovation process management software, that enable everyone in the firm to share ideas.


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Jeffrey BaumgartnerJeffrey Baumgartner is the founder of jpb.com, makers of Jenni innovation process management software. He also edits Report 103, a popular eJournal on business innovation. Contact Jeffrey at jeffreyb@jpb.com or visit https://www.jpb.com/

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No Comments

  1. James Ramsay on April 20, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    Interesting read. Over the years I’ve worked with many companies looking into the issues and challenges they face in managing their innovation processes. Without fail, irrespective of the particular company’s level of innovation prowess or type of innovation, I have found:

    – A determination to improve the return from their innovation investment
    – The desire to learn from the world’s leading innovative companies
    – An increasing dependence on IT to deliver innovation process transformation

    I explore this further in my blog “Idea Management: Feeding the Innovation Machine” (https://community.ca.com/blogs/ppm/archive/2011/03/31/idea-management-feeding-the-innovation-machine.aspx).

    Completely agree in the need for an IT solution to facilitate the innovation process. It is my experience that Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions provides businesses the requisite AGILITY, VISIBILITY and CONTROL to become more effective innovators, whilst avoiding stifling the creative process.

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