{"id":4387,"date":"2019-01-11T07:17:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T12:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=4387"},"modified":"2020-12-21T20:15:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T01:15:43","slug":"the-7-fundamentals-of-innovation-your-guidepost-to-doing-innovation-better-than-the-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/the-7-fundamentals-of-innovation-your-guidepost-to-doing-innovation-better-than-the-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Fundamentals of Innovation: Your Guidepost to Doing Innovation Better than the Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Managing innovation is an important process only a few organization can master very well.\u00a0 It is because the innovation <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4389 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-pic-1-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-pic-1-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-pic-1-768x503.jpg 768w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-pic-1.jpg 897w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>process is not fully understood or implemented and the innovation culture is still immature.<\/p>\n<p>While <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/business-toolkit\/innovation-management-inno\">Innovation Management<\/a> is recognized to bring in results, excellence has not been achieved in terms of managing innovation.\u00a0 Highly successful companies do not possess a silver innovation bullet.\u00a0 They do not achieve their results by just doing one of a few things better than others. They do everything better.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The 7 Fundamentals of Innovation<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\/flevypro\/7-fundamentals-of-innovation-3605\"> 7 Fundamentals of Innovation<\/a> are the building blocks of all organizations.\u00a0 These cornerstones must be established before any form of innovation is set into motion.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\/flevypro\/7-fundamentals-of-innovation-3605\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-4390\" src=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-1024x768.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation.png 1024w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/7-Fundamentals-of-Innovation-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Team<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Organizations must build successful teams for each specific task and purpose with the necessary competencies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Innovation must be emphasized to a high degree. This can be done through an updated and communicated company strategy with innovation as a central element.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Empowerment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Employees must be encouraged to act independently and know what to do with an idea. Constructive feedback must be given to all employees who are generating ideas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A strong <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/business-toolkit\/innovation-culture\">Innovation Culture<\/a> must be established that values questioning processes and products.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cooperation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Building external networks and cooperation with universities, research centers, customers, suppliers, partners, and stakeholders are important.\u00a0 This includes setting up a system for identifying potential innovations from external sources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monitoring<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Fixed procedures for evaluating innovation projects need to be established including continuous benchmarking with competitors. Financial tracking of innovation projects must also be undertaken for a minimum of 2 to 3 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Structure<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A structure must be established where everybody has a good overview of what everybody else does in the company.<\/p>\n<p>Without the Fundamental Innovation Elements, there will be no basis for a coherent and collective effort. Team and Strategy can maximize the growth potential of organizations while Empowerment and Culture can build people that create organizations that are innovatively successful. Innovations efforts are then firmed up with the integration of Cooperation, Monitoring, and Structure within the innovation process.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Learning from the Fundamentals: What Successful Organizations have Learned<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There are 3 overall key findings that organizations have learned and can learn from the Fundamentals of Innovation.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Highly successful companies are not just doing one or a few things better than less successful companies. They are doing everything better.<\/li>\n<li>The right team, empowerment of the employees, and a learning culture are the most important fundamental elements for Innovation Management.<\/li>\n<li>Successful companies are systematic and clear about their Innovation Management processes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\/flevypro\/7-fundamentals-of-innovation-3605\">Leading Innovation Practices<\/a> that divide highly successful companies from those that are less successful. One of the leading practices is the company\u2019s commitment to making innovation a part of the company\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/business-toolkit\/corporate-strategy\">corporate strategy<\/a>. This and other leading practices are what makes companies succeed in their innovation process and be on top of the race.<\/p>\n<p>Interested in gaining more understanding of the <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\/flevypro\/7-fundamentals-of-innovation-3605\">7 Fundamentals of Innovation<\/a>? You can learn more and download an<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\/flevypro\/7-fundamentals-of-innovation-3605\"> <u>editable PowerPoint about <strong>7 Fundamentals of Innovation<\/strong> here<\/u><\/a> on the <u><a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/browse\">Flevy documents marketplace<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n<h2>Do You Find Value in This Framework?<\/h2>\n<p>You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/pro\/library\">FlevyPro Library<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/pro\">FlevyPro<\/a> is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here&#8217;s what some have to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today\u2019s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013 Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013 David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant&#8217;s toolbox.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013 Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight \u2013 it&#8217;s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013 Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients&#8217; benefits.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013 Omar Hern\u00e1n Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Managing innovation is an important process only a few organization can master very well.\u00a0 It is because the innovation process is not fully understood or implemented and the innovation culture is still immature. While Innovation Management is recognized to bring in results, excellence has not been achieved in terms of managing innovation.\u00a0 Highly successful companies&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/the-7-fundamentals-of-innovation-your-guidepost-to-doing-innovation-better-than-the-rest\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The 7 Fundamentals of Innovation: Your Guidepost to Doing Innovation Better than the Rest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":4389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[1460,1459,1461],"class_list":["post-4387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-7-fundamentals-of-innovation","tag-innovation-management","tag-leading-innovation-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4387"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8211,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions\/8211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}