Why does the deployment of an innovation strategy often fail?

Deploying innovation strategies is not always easy. Problems in the practical implementation of a strategy usually appear as inconsistent actions and decision-making. Read about the most important prerequisites for the successful implementation of an innovation strategy.

Profitable business is always built on need

The first thing to understand is that a company should only offer products and services that are based on real needs. If the customer is not willing to pay for the product, the business cannot be profitable. Successful innovations are based on identifying the core needs of product users, and these needs can only be addressed by listening carefully to users and observing their behaviour. However, data alone is not enough. It is also important to be able to analyse the acquired information and thereby generate new insights to support product development.

See the future and your customer there

The most important thing is being able to see what kinds of things customers want to achieve. Successful innovation should not be built as an extension of what has already been invented. For example, product development guided by existing technology prevents the emergence of new kinds of ideas and ways of thinking. Technical solutions and related decisions should only be dealt with towards the end of the product development process. You should not look too closely at competitors either, since this would limit the scope for exploiting your own creativity. Above all, you should look straight ahead to the future and to things that the customer values there.

Everyone should feel the strategy belongs to them

The strategy should be clear in everyone’s mind in order to be implemented in daily work. A common obstacle to the successful deployment of the strategy is that the people working in the organisation do not feel that the strategy belongs to them in the first place. If people do not feel that something belongs to them, it is hard to make them commit to it. The most important thing would be to involve people throughout the organisation in creating a common strategy, to bring them together from the very beginning to discuss and come up with ideas. This way, it will be possible to achieve a strategy that everyone will be able to follow in their work and support with their decisions. Naturally, the company management plays an important role in guiding this work done together.

Towards genuine innovation by listening to the customer

Do you aim to design completely new kinds of products and services? We have good news for you: ED Design has developed the DESIGN PUZZLE™ toolkit for the development of successful products and services and the user-centric identification of innovation opportunities. Our method is based on listening to users and observing their behaviour, which generates a huge amount of useful information to help with product development. Contact ED Design to learn more!