8 Corporate Innovation Best Practices You Should Know About

Many innovation labs, such as IKEA, Maserati, or the Swiss retailer Migros, are shutting down—why? 

The reason is simple: they failed to deliver strategic value to their parent organizations. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of best innovation practices to help you build the right corporate innovation strategy and ensure innovation efforts make a meaningful impact.

Let’s dive in!

8 Corporate Innovation Best Practices You Should Implement

1. Establish and Align Clear Innovation Goals

You need to establish short-term and long-term objectives that align with the overall business strategy, such as increasing market share, enhancing customer satisfaction, or driving cost efficiencies. 

Align with the most influential stakeholders, such as C-Level, on those objectives and communicate them effectively within your team. 

Furthermore, ensure that the ambitious level of the goals is also reflected in the according budget- and time-spending. 

As a starting point, you should assess your organization's current priorities and vision. 

Also, understand market trends and challenges to define innovation objectives in alignment with your strategic direction.
Often, this process step is rushed without ensuring alignment with the most important stakeholders. 

Furthermore, reality shows people are wired to avoid risk and want to preserve the status quo. 

Innovation goes against human nature (and many incentive schemes for managers are so, too). 

Hence, many managers stop projects when things get uncertain. You should consider this fact while setting the innovation goals and the according risk appetite.

It’s essential that your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). This framework:

• Provides clarity, 
• Enables you to track progress
• Ensures feasibility, 
• Aligns with desired outcomes and 
• Sets clear deadlines.

Furthermore, having practical goals makes it easier to turn them into an actionable roadmap.

Get Inspired:

Siemens Energy’s mission statement was, and still is, to provide energy solutions across the entire value chain in over 90 countries.

However, the company needed to set practical goals aligned with the brand to achieve that. With rready’s help, Siemens turned goals into an actionable roadmap and created an open and inclusive approach for all employees worldwide to contribute ideas. 

This way, Siemens Energy created a visible innovation process that ultimately supported its mission statement while increasing the overall company ROI by more than 820%, based on the fees linked to our services.

2. Implement a Structured Innovation Process & Governance

To effectively manage the entire lifecycle of innovation, from ideation through to execution, you must adopt a systematic and structured approach and its governance.

Effective methodologies for managing innovation are Agile and Lean. 

Agile emphasizes adaptability and collaboration among cross-functional teams. 

Moreover, it allows teams to respond swiftly to changing market demands and to incorporate feedback throughout the project lifecycle.

On the other hand, Lean methodologies focus on maximizing value while minimizing waste. 

This encourages your organization to identify and eliminate non-value-adding activities in your innovation processes.

Lean principles promote a culture of experimentation and learning to pivot quickly based on user feedback and market insights.

Additionally, embracing techniques like Design Thinking can further enrich the innovation process.

This human-centered approach involves:

• Empathizing with users, 
• Defining problems, 
• Ideating potential solutions, 
• Prototyping, and 
• Testing those solutions to ensure they resonate with the target audience.

Integrating these methodologies not only allows for flexibility and efficiency but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement within your organization.

In addition to the chosen methodologies, you must define the governance of the process. 

Questions such as who decides and how they decide if a project moves on to the next phase are key to be answered before getting started. 

Furthermore, you must predefine timeframes and the expected involvement of idea givers, sponsors and other stakeholders. This governance must be iteratively monitored and adjusted as the company matures in innovation. 

ProTip:

The Kickbox methodology is an innovation framework that helps employees turn their ideas into validated projects and encourages them to continuously test and improve their ideas.

The KICKBOOK, a central component of the Kickbox methodology, guides your employees through the innovation process in a structured and engaging manner. 

With the KICKBOOK, your employees will understand where they are in the process and what actions to take throughout their innovation journey.

Thus, it offers a step-by-step guide that outlines the entire process, from raw- to implemented ideas. 

See the graphic below on the idea validation process, which you can also download here.

As mentioned, behind the method of pushing one single idea forward, the governance of the whole process is key. 

Keep the process lean as it’s shown above, abstract and simplified, and follow the following steps:

3. Foster a Culture of Innovation

Regardless of the methodology or innovation process you opt for, corporate innovation can look different depending on the company and its goals. 

There are different options to achieve the goals in corporate innovation, ranging from Classic R&D and Corporate VC to Intrapreneurship, Venture Clienting, top-down Innovation, and Idea Management. 

The key for all activities is that the company can set a certain level of innovation culture, depending on the chosen option. 

If the company opts for intrapreneurship or idea management, a solid and scaled innovation culture must be established (and the disciplines help to do so). 

If R&D or Corporate VC is the chosen path, the innovation culture is still crucial to enable sustainable innovation governance but must not necessarily be scaled up, hence reaching fewer people within the organization. 

In other words, your employees must be invested in the process independent of which path you choose. The difference is only the level of engagement.

Create an environment that encourages creativity, experimentation and collaboration. But be careful that innovation does not turn into  ‘innovation theater’ where creative workshops are held, but the results don’t count that much. Creativity and the ‘controlled freedom’ to experiment should always be accompanied by KPI tracking and reporting.

This approach helps cultivate a culture that values creativity and learning from mistakes.

It’s no secret that employees are more open to ideating and contributing ideas when they aren’t afraid of making mistakes.

Moreover, implement recognition programs that celebrate small and significant contributions to innovation. 

Acknowledging innovative efforts transparently, whether big or small, reinforces their importance and motivates employees to continue thinking creatively.

ProTip:

Did you know that with KICKBOX, you can eliminate a typical innovation hurdle: the lack of employee engagement?

Implementing it helps employees contribute ideas regardless of their position, department, or prior experience through various actionable templates, tools, and gamification elements.

They take ownership of their ideas, thus decentralizing the innovation process. The platform allows you to store ideas under one roof and easily categorize, filter, and track them.

This way, you can efficiently source, assess, and manage ideas and align them with company strategy through focused topics and campaigns.

Being an API-first Platform means you can smoothly integrate our Idea Management solution into your existing tool landscape and tailor it to your needs.

To boost their innovation efforts further, you can enable digital wallets your employees can use to book experts and provide them access to necessary tools and coaching for their innovation journey.

Employees gather gamified badges within the systems for their contribution, and successful innovators automatically (or upon approval) receive a LinkedIn certificate stating their learnings. 

If you’re looking for more inspiration,  discover these Success Stories of the KICKBOX Program, and see how Swisscom Energy and other companies adapted our program to kickstart company-wide innovation.

4. Leverage AI-native Innovation Management Software and Data Analytics

Embracing technologies such as AI and big data analytics allow you to streamline your operations and processes and automate certain tasks. 

Innovation management software facilitates steps in the innovation process, from ideation to execution, enabling you to decentralize innovation without investing in numerous (and costly) central innovation teams.

They allow the transition from scattered notes to a streamlined idea repository, with a unified space for collecting, organizing, and assessing ideas.

This way, you can simultaneously screen, qualify, and track the progress of many employee ideas, removing duplication.

At the same time, advanced data analytics help you identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement, optimizing business processes.

This can provide insights into market trends and customer preferences so your company’s innovation outcomes can offer more value for customers and their needs.

ProTip:

rready is an all-in-one, modular corporate innovation solution that optimizes innovation by enabling efficient idea sourcing, assessment, and management.

Besides the KICKBOX Intrapreneurship program, rready combines idea and innovation management in a unified platform for efficient idea validation and implementation.

Furthermore, our solution enables you to track various metrics, such as employee engagement,  progress of ideas, etc.

You can create custom reports and visualize key statistics with reporting and dashboards to analyze and share your data effortlessly and in real time.

5.  Provide Continuous Learning Opportunities

Employee churn costs a lot of money and time. Furthermore, the knowledge loss the company experiences if team numbers are constantly fluctuating is immense. 

It is thus only wise to work and develop the staff you have at hand. 

Besides the fact that they know your customers and processes the best, pushing them to improve their skill set will also unleash improved customer delivery and efficiency. 

Continuous learning empowers employees to develop new skills, challenge conventional thinking, and drive innovation. 

Here are some strategies you can use to implement continuous learning effectively:

1. Personalized Learning Budgets

Design learning budgets tailored to individual employee needs and align them with organizational goals. 

As a result, your employees will be motivated to pursue learning opportunities that enhance their skills and contribute to innovative solutions.

2. Idea Hackathons

Conduct hackathons across all departments to encourage cross-functional collaboration and out-of-the-box thinking and to motivate employees to explore new ideas and solutions. The main challenge with hackathons remains: the high fall after 48 hours of fun and an engaging hackathon. 

Most often, there is no time or no process (governance) in place that allows the participants to follow up on the ideated projects. As a result, the hackathon motivates employees but rarely turns ideas into projects since the follow-up is missing or unclear. 

KICKBOX can be placed as an application phase to a hackathon, which turns raw ideas into first-validated ideas, making the hackathon more relevant. Alternatively, KICKBOX acts as the process following the ideation phase of a hackathon. It results in less frustrated employees and a tangible (financial) impact.

3. Reverse Mentorship

Implement reverse mentorship programs where less experienced employees mentor more senior colleagues to bring fresh perspectives and insights through diverse viewpoints.

4. ROI Metrics

Track the impact of learning investments using metrics like employee performance, retention, and innovation outcomes to demonstrate the value of continuous learning and make informed decisions.

ProTip:

Did you know that one of the major advantages of the KICKBOX Program is that you can leverage it to focus on employees' learning and gaining knowledge rather than immediate success?

Your employees will gain valuable skills and experience through participation.

As a result, the program encourages personal growth and an intrapreneurial mindset no matter the success of the initial idea.

6. Encourage Open Innovation

Rather than relying solely on internal resources and ideas, open innovation encourages the strategic use of both external and internal ideas and pathways to market. 

By doing so, you boost collaboration with external partners, including various stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, academic institutions, and even independent innovators. 

This collaborative atmosphere is crucial, leading to a broader range of perspectives. Subsequently, it leads to more diverse and innovative solutions that may not have been possible through traditional means of innovation.

Crowdsourcing is a popular method that solicits contributions from a large group of people, often through online platforms or social media. 

Thus, they share their ideas, insights, and solutions to specific challenges. 

Furthermore, you can gather many ideas quicker than through traditional R&D methods, effectively reducing the time to market for new products and services.

For example, our Service Store connects your employees with external knowledge and experts within Business, Marketing, Tech and other areas to support them along the way.

7. Be Customer-centric

Customer-centric innovation enables you to deliver unique value propositions that resonate with customers.

When you understand and address customer pain points, you can increase customer engagement and create solutions that drive substantial financial returns.

Furthermore, by actively listening to customer feedback, you can identify opportunities for innovation that resonate deeply with the target audience.

This constant iteration also allows you to stay relevant  by being agile and responsive to changing customer needs and market trends.

Is access to customers strictly limited in your organization? Well, then your company is no exception. However, this isn't a big problem anymore since, with the help of AI, we can train an Agent with many (aggregated) customer data and interactions to be the first counterpart in developing and testing an idea. Powerful as it relies on real customer insights and interactions but doesn’t require direct customer access. 

Get Inspired:

For example, our KICKBOX initiative helped Pasha Holding, one of our clients, provide a banking solution targeted at teenagers. 

Pasha’s service helped young people acquire financial know-how by managing finances through an account of an adult  

Such a customer-centric innovation not only addresses the financial needs of a younger demographic but also helps build future insurance customer relationships by engaging with families early on.

8. Continuously Review and Adapt Strategies

Continuous review and adaptation allow you to respond effectively to any market and product demand shifts, ensuring your strategies remain relevant and effective.

Here are a few tips to help you out:

• Regularly assess the effectiveness of innovation initiatives against evolving business objectives. Conduct regular reviews of strategic plans to assess progress, identify areas for improvement, and make necessary adjustments.
• Be prepared to pivot strategies based on performance data and market feedback to remain relevant.
• Encourage a culture of continuous learning, where feedback from customers, employees, and stakeholders is integrated into strategic planning. This way, you ensure that strategies align with evolving needs and market conditions.

Why Corporate Innovation Matters?

Besides being a growth catalyst, innovation fosters a culture of creativity, encouraging employees to think outside the box and embrace new ideas that can transform traditional business models.

Let’s see in what other ways your organization can benefit from adopting innovation:

1. Adaptability: Innovation enables you to respond effectively to unforeseen challenges and market disruptions.

2. Competitive Advantage: By continuously innovating, you can differentiate from competitors by developing unique products or improving existing services.

3. Growth Opportunities: You can drive business growth by identifying new markets, diversifying revenue streams, and enhancing operational efficiency.

4. Increased Efficiency: Through innovation, you can streamline processes and implement new technologies that enhance productivity,  save time and reduce costs.

8 Common Mistakes in the Innovation Process

Innovation processes can be complex and prone to challenges, which can hinder the success of innovation initiatives.

To save you from a headache, pay attention to the most common mistakes below so you can avoid them:

1. Investing in ideas that don't align with strategic business objectives. 

Doing so wastes resources on projects that don’t contribute to the company's overall vision or growth strategy, resulting in reduced ROI and decreased competitiveness.

2. Assuming knowledge of customer needs without validation.

Without a deep understanding of customer needs, you may overlook opportunities to innovate and improve your products or services. 

Consequently, this lack of innovation can lead to stagnation and failure to meet evolving market demands.

3. Rushing the innovation process and skipping critical steps to speed up the process leaves little room for reflection on changing contexts or adapting strategies based on feedback. 

Furthermore, launching innovations before they are fully developed or before the market is ready can lead to failure.

4. Focusing solely on idea generation without execution. 

If creativity alone is mistaken for innovation, you might not prioritize the implementation phase necessary to turn creative ideas into actionable solutions or bring them to market effectively.

5. Ignoring emerging trends and future needs. 

Failing to recognize emerging trends or disruptions can leave you unprepared for shifts in market conditions, consumer behavior, or technological advancements. Thus, you may miss opportunities to pioneer new markets or technologies.

6. Implementing software and tools without understanding their purpose.

Tools that are outdated or not user-friendly can limit your employees' ability to brainstorm and collaborate effectively. 

Without advanced tools like AI or big data analytics, you may miss critical insights that could drive innovation.

7. Being inflexible and resistant to feedback prevents your organization from pivoting when necessary, causing you to fall behind more agile competitors. 

Inflexible operations lead to inefficiencies such as higher scrap rates, delivery delays, and lost contracts due to an inability to implement improvements suggested by employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

8. Avoiding experimentation due to fear of failure. By trying to avoid failure, you may not be pushing the boundaries enough to discover truly innovative solutions. 

Without these valuable learning opportunities, it’s almost impossible to refine ideas and improve future outcomes.

Here at rready, we provide solutions to help you not only avoid the above mistakes but allocate funds and resources where it matters most — idea execution.

How Can rready Help You Successfully Adopt A Corporate Innovation Strategy?

rready offers modular innovation management solutions that nurture a bottom-up approach to empower employees to generate, collect, validate, and execute ideas.

Combining its 3 core solutions, 

• rready Idea Management,
• KICKBOX Intrapreneurship, and 
• rready Innovation Management, we help you streamline the ideation process and increase engagement and collaboration.

Thus, you can:

• Use customizable idea submission forms and targeted campaigns to gather relevant information on ideas for efficient evaluation.
• Get immediate feedback from employees on ideas to promote collaboration and refinement.
• Easily track task assignments to manage tasks efficiently.
• Tailor the platform to your unique needs with personalized onboarding, workflows, granular roles, and a permission management system for full control.
• Structure employees' thoughts and streamline their processes as they move from raw ideas to PoC.
• Monitor your entire innovation funnel without the risk of missing an idea opportunity.
• and the list goes on.

Since rready’s solutions are modular, you can use the individual solutions or combine them, depending on your innovation stage and goals.

Learn more:

• How to Create an Innovation Culture?
• Corporate Innovation Myths: It's Not as Risky as You Think
• A Guide to Executing Innovation Strategy