It's all about innovation is a new publication with two easy-to-use tools for business. These tools were developed with the assistance of Professor Danny Samson, Department of Management and Marketing, at the University of Melbourne. To assist the work of the Industry Innovation Councils, Professor Samson investigated how companies become and remain systematically innovative.
Industry Innovation Councils bring together innovation leaders from industry, unions, research and government to strengthen the culture of innovation in Australia. The Councils provide strategic advice on innovation priorities to the Minister, champion innovation in industry, and build connections and collaborate with other innovation initiatives and organisations.
Innovation can be the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), process, organisational method, technology, marketing method, or business model.
Eight tests of an innovative idea
Have you carefully considered these eight tests which will help you assess the likelihood of commercial success of your innovation?
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Tests |
Questions |
| 1 |
Valuable benefits |
Does the innovation provide benefits that are clearly superior to existing alternatives?
Can you articulate the 'value proposition' of what is new and why it is better in value terms, that customers can appreciate?
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| 2 |
Scale up |
Can the innovation be mass produced with consistent quality to satisfy the market need? |
| 3 |
Marketing |
Have you assessed demand and do you have a channel to the consumer?
Marketing includes design, branding, pricing, distribution, sales, and other factors. |
| 4 |
Leadership team |
Do the key people involved in this innovation have the knowledge, skills, experience and courage to take it through to fruition? |
| 5 |
Intellectual property |
Do you have control over the intellectual property (IP) for the innovation?
Control can be achieved through ownership or licence arrangement. |
| 6 |
Return on investment |
Will the innovation generate enough profit to make it worthwhile?
You need to consider risk and the time the innovation will take to implement. |
| 7 |
Corporate social responsibility |
Does the innovation make progress on all three dimensions of value creation outcomes (financial, environmental, and social)? |
| 8 |
Strategic fit |
Is the innovation consistent and aligned with the firm's overall business strategy?
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Creating an innovation strategy
These principles of innovation can help you create your firm's practical innovation strategy.
| Principles of innovation |
What to do... |
| Principle 1 |
Every organisation finds its own unique innovation focus.
There is no one recipe. |
Our primary focus of innovation effort is ... |
| Principle 2 |
Strong, determined, energetic, dynamic leadership commitment
is required for innovation. |
Our executive leadership commitment to innovation is... |
| Principle 3 |
Strong customer focus successfully motivates and directs innovation
efforts. |
Our approach to using innovation for customer value creation (providing more
benefits, and less risk and cost to customers) is... |
| Principle 4 |
Readiness for regular change, and sensible risk taking and risk
sharing is required. |
Our strategy for managing change, and risk taking and sharing is... |
| Principle 5 |
Sustainable development factors, such as waste reduction, staff well being,
and environmental improvement go hand in hand with innovation. |
Our policy and effort level on sustainable development initiatives are... |
| Principle 6 |
Innovation is often done well by collaborations with partners from outside
the organisation. Open innovation works. |
The best collaborations for our firm are... |
| Principle 7 |
There are significant business benefits to being innovative: first staying
in business, then growth and price premiums, then differentiation, profitability
and long term competitive advantage. |
The specific business benefits from our innovations will be... |
| Principle 8 |
Innovative firms can attract and retain the best people, leading to further
innovation capability. |
The types of people we will need to drive the implementation of our innovations are... |
| Principle 9 |
| Innovation can be leveraged throughout the supply network. |
Our best opportunities to influence innovation in our supply networks are... |
| Principle 10 |
| Innovation can become fully embedded in a firm's value system. |
Our approach to valuing, measuring and rewarding innovation activities is... |
| Principle 11 |
If the innovation is driven by a small group of champions, then there is a
risk that once they are gone, the innovation capability and priority will dissipate. |
Our approach to making innovation part of the widespread culture, beyond the champions, is... |
| Principle 12 |
| Effective management of quality underpins systematic innovation capability. |
Our current effectiveness at managing quality, and plans to improve, are... |
| Principle 13 |
Innovation can be incremental (small) or radical (large), and when it is large
it is usually followed by a series of incremental improvements. |
Our balance between larger and smaller innovations is.. |
| Principle 14 |
| Innovation is not free. It requires investment in capability building, training and experimentation. |
Our resource commitment to investment in innovation is... |
Eight tests of an innovative idea and Creating an innovation strategy were developed with the assistance of Professor Danny Samson, Department of Management and Marketing, at the University of Melbourne. Both tools draw on the research report for Industry Innovation Councils by Professor Samson, entitled Innovation for business success: Achieving a systematic innovation capability [ PDF 623 KB] [ RTF 1.3MB].
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