IT-enabled Business Innovation

Colin Ashurst & Alison Freer 8th July 2011

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• Insight into specific opportunities for business innovation to deliver benefits for your organisation

• The ability to adopt practices that contribute to successful innovation

• The opportunity to participate further in research project interviews.

Workshop Objectives, to gain:

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Innovation is NOT just inventionFriday, 8 July 2011

Innovation = ideas successfully applied

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How do we improve cash-flow?

• Global IT services business

• 40 countries

• 90000 employees

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How do we prioritise our R&D Investment?

• Global business

• Multiple suppliers with expertise

• High competition

• Time critical

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How do we better exploit our IP?

• Software services SME

• Lots of expertise

• Lots of ideas

• Need to diversify

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How do we manage employee expenses?

• Large public body

• 1000s employees

• Multiple systems

• New IT system most likely solution?

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Innovation doesn’t come from the usual ‘busy few’Friday, 8 July 2011

Ask the crowd - the ‘Pull’Friday, 8 July 2011

Sponsorship and Commitment - the ‘Push’Friday, 8 July 2011

How do we improve cash-flow?

• What can we do with collaboration technology?

• Piloted smaller scale innovation projects

• Engaged people who weren’t the usual innovators

• CEO sponsored Finance with 1 challenge per year

• On-line virtual campaign yielded $128M savings from ideas submitted

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How do we maximise our R&D expertise?

• Entrepreneurial leader, driven to capitalise on R&D expertise

• Started small with a few R&D staff, some reticence as scope increased

• Innovation Days with speakers from IBM etc

• Won over hearts & minds

• ‘Open Innovation’ campaign with 3rd party suppliers = 90 new R&D ideas

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How do we better exploit our IP?

• Held a series of ‘FedEx days’ to permit creativity and flesh out conceptual ideas

• ‘Deep dive’ sessions with key clients and collaborators

• Prioritised 2 new product development projects

• 1 new product going to market in less than 6 months

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How do we manage employee expenses?

• IT paused to consider before saying ‘yes’ to the request

• IT initiated a Benefits Planning Session

• 20 people from around the organisation all experts in expenses admin

• Decided refining other processes a bigger priority, no need to invest in expenses system

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Ideation - the process of forming and relating ideas Friday, 8 July 2011

• Innovation processes, enabled by technology

• Collaborative - connecting the many

• Everyone can see, comment and deepen ideas

• Focused questions

• Rapid campaigns and decision making

Open Innovation

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“The limits to innovation in large organisations have nothing to do with creativity and nothing to do with technology. They have everything to do with management capability”.

Govindarajan and Trimble (2010)Harvard Business School Press

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Innovation Debate

• What examples of (IT-enabled) Innovation can you identify from your own experience?

• Describe the factors that ‘enabled’ the innovation to be successfully applied.

• Describe the factors that got in the way

• 1 point per post-it please.

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Coffee Break

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An Innovation Toolkit

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Challenge: Develop innovative uses of technology & create customer demand to cross the ‘Chasm’

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Innovation Tool #1: IT & Change Portfolio

Strategic!

may be important!

in achieving future!

success!

critical to existing

business

operations!

valuable but!

not critical to!

success!

critical to!

achieving strategic !

objectives!

Core Operations! Support!

Exploratory!

Improving the current business!

Transformational change / doing new things!

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From Innovating through IT by Joe Peppard

Innovation Tool #2: Technology Funnel

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Innovation Tool #3: Phased Benefits Delivery (AGILE)

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Innovation Tool #4: Benefits Planning

Why do we want!improvement?!

What improvement do!we want/could we get?!

Where will the benefit occur (for each benefit)?!

Can it be !measured?!

Can it be !quantified?!

Can a financial !value be put on it?!

Who is responsible for!its delivery?!

What changes are!needed?!

Who will be affected?!

How & when can !changes be made?! BENEFIT REALIZATION PLAN!

Benefits Review: Benefits Achieved? !More Benefits Possible? Further Actions?!

Based on Benefits Management (2006) Ward and Daniel!

Benefits Delivery!

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Innovation Tool #5: Design-led Approach

•Vision & Ideation

•Observation

•Prototyping

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Innovation Tool #6: Design ShowcaseFriday, 8 July 2011

• IBM ‘Idea Jam’

• 104 countries: employees, universities, customers..

• 40,000 ideas

• 10 new business ventures

• $70M investment

• $300M new revenue in 2 years

Innovation Tool #7: Open Innovation

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Innovation Tool #8: Big Chief Innovator

• Idea Portfolio Manager

• Chief Growth Officer

• Chief Acceleration Officer

• Chief Inspiration Officer

• Chief Imagination Officer

• Chief Detonator

• Chief Lizard Wrangler

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Innovation Tool #9: Personality Mix

• Anthropologists

• Experimenters

• Cross-Polinators

• Hurdlers

• Collaborators

• Directors

• Experience Architects

• Set Designers

• Care-givers

• StorytellersThe Ten Faces of Innovation,

Tom Kelley (2007)Friday, 8 July 2011

Innovation Tool #10: Collaboration TechnologiesFriday, 8 July 2011

‘Step Back’ Activity

• In your table group identify 1 innovation opportunity that exists for one of your organisations

• One person explains the scenario to the group (1 minute)

• Rest of group generates as many options and innovation tools as possible - whilst originator listens. (10 minutes)

• Originator gives their reaction & feedback.

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Next Steps.........

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Ideas Successfully Applied....

• What are the priorities for the research

• Take part in the research - innovations stories from your organisations

• Engage in the debate and innovate together - Innovation Forum?

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Contacts

colin.ashurst@durham.ac.ukalison@leadandtransformit.com

www.leadandtransformit.com

Photography credits:www.redboatcreative.com Google Images

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