In today’s world, innovation isn’t just something that’s nice to have. It’s an imperative in any organisation, big or small, that hopes to thrive.

But how can companies structure themselves to ensure that innovation takes place naturally? And what impact will the shifting technological landscape have on the ability of companies to innovate?

Those are just a couple of the questions that our co-founder Jorge Castellote was asked at a special innovation event hosted by ESADE Executive Education and ESADE Alumni.

Here are his answers.

1. How can companies organize themselves effectively and creatively for innovation?

By treating innovation as an ecosystem. That is, they need to go beyond viewing innovation as a process. Starting from the top, it must be a leadership priority.

Innovation requires strategy, good governance, and room to practice (your lab). This will allow the organization to adapt to all the uncertainty and change happening in our world. You need to be lean, fast, and promote a culture of intrapreneurship.

2. What are the latest trends and innovative strategies to take advantage of the opportunities that digital disruption is creating?

The latest trends and strategies around innovation entail managing the three horizons, and organizations being flexible enough to test and experiment at speed. There are two key elements we have found are extremely important: the sandbox, or a space for teams to test new concepts without breaking the assets of the organization, and the freedom council, or how supporting functions enable experimentation.

3. How will the development of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), the IoT or the management of big data affect companies?

As was the case in the past, the technology by itself will have no impact. Instead, it is the application of these technologies that will be truly disruptive. Back in 1900, it wasn’t electricity and the combustion engine that completely transformed our world, but the way they were used.

We must look at how technologies like AI and IoT can transform different industries. There’s no doubt that they will, it is just a matter of time, but the real innovation will come from those who can use them effectively.

These emerging technologies are already having a massive impact. That impact will only grow going forward and companies need to be aware of what impact specific technologies will have on them.

4. Will these technologies create flexible and customer-oriented productive and logistic processes?

As I said previously, I believe it is in our hands to find applications for these technologies that create flexibility and customer-oriented processes. As long as organizations have the right mindset, technology definitely allows for the scenarios outlined above. Certainly, there will be plenty of possibilities for organizations to be more customer-centric but each business will need to assess whether a new technology allows for this. Not all technologies have the same impact.

5. Is it possible to lead in technological innovation and anticipate the needs and experiences of the future with a positive social impact?

We treat the future as a big question mark. The best way to prepare for that uncertainty is to be able to diversify your “bets” and scale the ones that are successful. To do that, we push organizations to create and manage an innovation portfolio, which comprises all the potential opportunities and experiment systematically.

Social impact is already a reality. Younger generations are already challenging long-established ways of doing business and we need to encourage them to keep doing so.

We believe on building an innovation ecosystem for corporations where not all capabilities are found internally. It might happen but we suggest building an ecosystem with universities, startups, incubation centers, government, and within companies themselves.

Would you like to talk to innoway about innovation? Contact us here.