1.6
Ambition and Innovation Portfolio Management

Innovation Ambition

Where to innovate?

How to implement innovation in practice?

Innovation could happen at any time, at any function of the business

Link innovation approaches to business assets

Innovation Portfolio

Diversification reduce the risk of an investment portfolio and strike a balance of risk and reward

A range of innovation opportunities form the portfolio of innovation

Comprise of a collection of innovation approaches

Challenging Radical approaches

Simple Incremental approaches

Innovation Ambition Matrix "Approaches"
(Innovation Management Tool)

Enhancements of Core Innovation

Pursuit of Adjacent Innovation

Transformational Innovation

Optimizing existing products / services for existing customers

Expanding from existing business

Developing breakthroughs and inventing things for markets that don't yet exist

Factors for diversity of portfolio

Industry

Competitive position

Company stage of development

Technological companies focus on transformational

Consumer goods manufacturers focus on core

The goal is to find the balance to achieve the best possible ROI

Innovation Management Key factors

Talent

Integration

Funding

Pipeline Management

Metrics

Different ambition levels require different skills

Organizing, managing and linking skills and functions within the firm

Core and adjacent innovations do not need major funding, but transformational innovations do

Project management model comprising of stages and gates (Stage-gate process)

Future sales predictions and management

For transformational innovations, this approach is lethal and dangerous

Transformational innovations require non-linear process with potential alternatives

Financial metrics are appropriate to informatively measure core and adjacent innovations

Non-economic and internal metrics are suitable for transformational in its early stages and them hard economics in later stages

Total innovation

Managing a portfolio of innovations

Ambition level set up

Development of a shared motivation for innovation to grow and create competitive advantage

Determine current innovation landscape (If any)