Framing the Landscape
So far we have defined innovation, understood its purpose, and mapped its forms. Now we widen the lens. Applied business innovation happens inside a larger landscape - a web of markets, customers, competitors, technologies, societies, and rules. To practise innovation well, you have to see this whole system, because forces far outside your organisation shape when, where, and how innovation can succeed.
The forces around every innovation
Needs, behaviours, and the shifting balance of power (increasingly toward the consumer).
Enabling advances that open new possibilities and obsolete old ones.
Values, norms, and expectations that determine what will be embraced.
Rules that can accelerate or block innovation before it ever reaches the market.
Of these forces, the one innovators most often underestimate is policy and regulation. A breakthrough can be technically ready and commercially compelling, yet blocked - or unleashed - purely by the regulatory environment it meets. That is why this module zooms in on the debate about how permissive that environment should be.
For an innovation your organisation is pursuing, which external force - market readiness, technology, society, or regulation - is most likely to make or break it? Are you actively managing that force?
Sources
- Global Innovation Institute (GInI), Foundations of Innovation body of knowledge.
- Thierer, A., Permissionless Innovation, Mercatus Center, 2016.
- West, J. & Bogers, M., "Leveraging External Sources of Innovation", 2014.