Even at the risk of eating a
humble pie (few years down the line), yours truly is going to take a shot at
how Innovation model in organization would evolve.
Current model of innovation in organizations
is same as Software products industry - some 15 years back. Proprietary
products used to rule the roost, siloed products that did not talk to each
other used to dot the IT landscape with very limited choice to customers.
Customers and competition forced the players to change to an open,
inter-operable products.
Innovation culture in
organizations today is not very different. Innovation DNA varies amongst
locations of same organization. More often, adoption or penetration is Top driven
and is not outcome oriented. Given the internalized model of innovation, it is
constrained by participation only from poorly incentivized employee population.
No wonder the output of existing
innovation model is inconsistent, with limited upside and sub-optimal.
As I see it, Innovation model
will go social in a boundary less manner. Organizations would lay bare their
problem areas through social platforms inviting rest of the world to look into
their Augean stables and suggest innovative solutions to the problems and I
expect that startup eco-system will be leading this charge. This would make the
innovation model “Open” in which varied eco-systems are talking to each other
by dissecting the problem and debating the possible solutions. This model is
more optimal as problem is now in front of larger participant universe that is
better incentivized (than employees) to solve the problem and walk away with
glory.
The challenge this model presents is that once
the optimal solution is identified, it is available for entire world to see,
analyze, customize and implement. Woe betide the organization whose execution
engine is slow to respond!! More on that but on another day!!