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What leads to innovation? How can mature companies sustain that cutting edge? Those are questions that executives have scratched their heads about for years. The spark that a small business once had seems to drown as it grows larger. The genius that a founder or researcher brought fades after someone else takes the helm.

Today, faced with tough, new realities including global competition and commoditization, it's more critical than ever for companies to find, and sustain, their innovative advantage. However, as critical as this topic is, Drs. Mohan Sawhney, Inigo Arroniz, and Robert Wolcott believe that businesses take a too-narrow view of what "innovation" means. Successful companies like Starbucks have shown that "innovation" must go beyond technological advances, to include areas like customer experience and supply chain management. Business innovation, Sawhney, Arroniz, and Wolcott argue, is about creating "new value, not new things." That's why they have developed a new framework for corporate innovation: the "innovation radar."

Join Tom Parish and Dr. Robert Wolcott, of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, who explains the innovation radar, how the three researchers worked with major corporations over a three-year period to develop this framework, and how it can help your business achieve, and hold on to, the creative advantage.

The Innovation Radar™

Resources

The 12 Ways for Companies to Innovate (MITSloan Management Review, Spring 2006)

Tool: Innovation Radar

Kellogg School of Management Technology Industry Management Program

Bio

Robert C. Wolcott, Ph.D., is a fellow and adjunct professor with the Center for Research in Technology & Innovation and the Entrepreneurship Program at the Kellogg School of Management since 2002. Teaches Corporate Innovation in Evanston and for Kellogg’s Executive MBA Program at the HKUST (Hong Kong) and Keio Business School (Tokyo). In 2003, co-founded (with Mohan Sawhney) and directs the Kellogg Innovation Network, a network of senior executives dedicated to driving sustainable innovation (Cargill, PepsiCo, Sony, DuPont, FedEx, Chamberlain Group, Microsoft, GE, Motorola). Through 2001, Director of Innovation Process, XL Tech Group (xltg.com), publicly traded firm (UK) building new technology-based businesses: $1 billion+ portfolio. Clients include ABN Amro, Kraft, Microsoft, ADT, Herman Miller, HP, Chamberlain, SAP and Motorola. Appointed to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), Alexandria, VA. BA, History; MS, Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, Northwestern.

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer