Check out the seminar presentations:
Growth through Innovation: Partnering for Success By John Bacon
IBM and GridManager: Innovation Collaboration By Anders Quitzau
VIDEO: John Bacon describes the innovation logjam
Overcoming the Innovation Logjam
By: Hannah Thompson, DABF Intern
John Bacon, founder of iP2Biz, and Anders Quitzau, IBM Innovation Executive, shared the secrets of successful innovation at our September 13th “Growth through Innovation” seminar. Bacon and Quitzau candidly exposed the obstacles and spoilers of innovation and advised how to avoid them. Thank you to the speakers and participants for making this event a great success.
Danish companies are among the most innovative in the world. However, there’s always room for improvement, especially when it comes to common innovation pitfalls. For example, consider the two kinds of corporate innovation: disruptive and sustaining. Businesses are often too busy sustaining their current innovations that they unwittingly repel disruptive, new innovation. The reason for this, naturally, is that disruptive innovations, while new and exciting, can also be turbulent to the natural flow of the corporation. This conflict is known as ‘the innovation logjam’.
John Bacon insists, “you can’t break up a logjam from the shore”. Ideas may come from within, but inventions come from the outside. In other words, companies don’t innovate, people do. This is precisely why companies should partner with innovation intermediaries - a term for organizations that can scout, endorse and verify new disruptive innovation for businesses.
IBM’s Anders Quitzau agreed. He shared IBM’s success story about opening up for ‘disruptive’ innovation from the outside. With a major change in corporate strategy in the early 1990’s, IBM opened up their labs to the world, greatly helping them accelerate innovation. They started their Global Entrepreneurship Program, giving start-up partners mentoring and networking, access to industry insights, and access to technology. IBM, in return, receives technology and trend scouting, new channels to market, and a jump-start to innovation.
Quitzau stressed that a strategic fit is key. It’s important to work with the right people in the organization to ensure optimal results and understanding. The partnership must be win-win (as opposed to CSR-related) for both parties. Both partners should state their goals clearly and be flexible with one another. Finally, expectations for pace, resources, processes, and structure should be agreed on from the start and confidentiality must be respected.
IBM used Væksthus as a sort of innovation intermediary when it formed a partnership with GridManager. So far, the collaboration is a huge success, with IBM partially ‘blue-washing’ Grid Manager and helping them sign several agreements with large customers.