A report by Boston Consulting Group to tell you about post-covid innovation.
What an intense period!
We have so much to learn from what is happening but also the time to read, listen and look back.
In front of us continuous new and unpredictable situations. Constant conflicts between awareness and uncertainty. That uncertainty that little or a lot is accompanying us but cannot be a brake on audacity and intuition. A brake on the future.
The Boston Consulting Group analysis “The serial innovation imperative” highlights that during 2020 companies that double their investments in innovation during periods of recession are positioned in the recovery phase before the others and their performance is more solid and long-term.
But doing it successfully requires developing a clear strategy and appropriate investments, exploiting the advantages of scale and ensuring that the innovation system is agile enough to identify and seize the best opportunities quickly and decisively, even boldly.
Is there really something new in all of this that we are missing? No. But the first sentence of the report clearly states that to innovate is to change. And change starts from commitment, from the will to do so.
But the analysis is much more interesting than expected. For years it was said that the smallest companies were the fastest to innovate, provided they were more agile and with leaner governance. While now, as demonstrated by this analysis that we can consider absolutely reliable and authoritative, it emerges that big companies today have an advantage that is fundamental for driving change and innovation, namely their engine made up of experience, financial and organizational capabilities. The real changes and challenges of today's innovation are so profound and impactful that they require a structure capable of mastering and implementing them. We are no longer talking about startups or laboratories, but about scaleup companies. Today anything that embraces real change needs to be scaled at an organisational, managerial, economic level, ... But the real news is that it is no longer just an issue for the little ones. Indeed it is the big companies that have now embraced the model internally to reshape everything from governance to core-business processes. A sort of renewal necessary to create the right space for a new, young and modern management!
Disruptive innovation. The front is this. A context in which it is necessary to start early and have clear ideas. Be prepared for failures. Knowing how to grasp the good even in failures. Ride the hits right away. Thus a list of large companies has started and is forging ahead with a normally different and exciting future.
The sectors that make the most progress in this direction are software, automotive, chemicals but also manufacturing in which Fashion is certainly the one that more than others needs to make a leap forward. Transport, media and finance are still far behind. With the telcos and durable goods that develop innovation internally but with poor results externally.
Well, read the BCG Innovation Report 2020 and you'll find out what's going on! talent, culture of innovation, ideas, organizational and implementation skills, funnel-management and knowledge/awareness of one's own market are and remain the major themes. But be careful because COVID-19 has accelerated everything and created new spaces for action.
Enjoy the reading!
