Recode 3: Innovation Recoded: Creativity, Design, Innovation, Business Models

Most innovation is still focused on developing better products, maybe services. Most innovation takes a cool new technology and tries to apply it to an old activity. Innovation applies to every aspect of business, and like the entrepreneurs who seek to disrupt established business, we need to entrepreneurial in mindset and action.

That starts with hypothesis and experimentation. Ideas come from insight, not through old research, instead through deep immersion and stretch imagination. Experimentation is about rapid test and learn loops, being able to conceptualise ideas than test them quickly, to learn and then scale them.

Key questions that we will explore include:

  • Where do new ideas come from, how can we more curious and creative as an organisation?
  • How can I use human-centred design thinking as a catalyst for faster, smarter innovation?
  • What are the alternative business models that could work in my business, and how can I adopt them?
  • How do I ensure that innovations don’t lose their impact once they enter the market?
  • What sustains  a culture of innovation through my business?

Innovation in most companies is still mostly about products and services, whereas innovation has most impact when applied to business models and customer experiences. We therefore focus on business innovation, driven by your purpose and opportunity, and by thinking hard about what is the problem we are trying to solve, and the impact we want to make.

Innovation is therefore particularly about five important factors, looking across the whole business to open up, and then close down:

  • Future sensing – building “foresight” to jump to the future, to redefine the context, open up and explore new possibilities, as well as meet the needs of today. Being inspired by lead users, looking for patterns, exploring the fringes of markets where newness most happens. It’s then about building a shared view of future possibilities and opportunities, aligning with purpose, to solve the problems of today and tomorrow.
  • Design thinking – embracing “insight” to understand the deeper motivations and aspirations of customers, through deep-dive immersion with individuals, connecting analytics with observation and intuition. Design thinking is about better defining the challenge – problem, opportunity – then being more human, creative and real in solving it.
  • Concept shaping – fusing ideas to create richer “concepts”, but also learning from other places, from “parallel” markets where the same customers are already embracing change and new ideas, and then applying to your own market, as a pioneer. Connecting initial ideas into concepts makes them stronger and more distinctive.
  • Creative disruption – how to be different, to challenge the conventions, break the rules, and redefine the markets in a different way – for example by technological simplification, or new customer behaviour. This creates rethinking – changing the who, why, what and how – and can potentially recalibrate the market.
  • New business models – more dramatic and sustainable innovation usually involves changing the way the business works – in particular through new partnerships, and creating new revenue streams built around a strong value proposition at the core – this focuses on value propositions and business model design.
  • Accelerating action – facilitating your best ideas to market better and faster, through challenge and support, bringing your best people together, adding external ideas to internal expertise, and disciplined process. This includes “lean thinking” techniques from minimal viable products, prototyping and then vortex market adoption.

In my book “Creative Genius” we explore Leonardo da Vinci’s 8 principles, then apply them to today’s business world: being curious, exploring margins, reframing context, visualisation, resolving paradox, balancing art and science, making new connections and being alive.

In my most recent books ‘Gamechangers’ and ‘Business Recoded’ I took deep dives into some of the world’s most interesting companies right now (see below), to understand how they really innovate, and the culture, strategy and leadership approaches which support this.

Peter Fisk helps you to innovate, further and faster. This can be either through fast and focused facilitation using the “Innolab” methodology that brings expert support to help you make the best ideas happen faster, through to the broader challenges of developing a creative culture, and innovation strategy – from capability diagnostics to portfolio management.

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Examples of recent clients include

  • Airbus: Driving towards sustainable travel, how aircraft can decarbonise faster, embrace new fuels like hydrogen, and new business models.
  • American Express: Innovation mindset and breakthrough projects, developing a shared process and culture for innovation.
  • Aster Atelier: Reimagining the fashion business for one of the largest private label manufactures on the high street, how to be better and go direct.
  • Coty: rethinking business models for the future of cosmetics – consumer change, market disruption, finding new growth – and rethinking the role of licensing models, to build more powerful brands in a changing world
  • Canon: FutureBook, creating the future of printing and publishing, positioning Canon as the thought leader of its customers world.
  • Erste Bank: How banks can innovate for innovators, by recognising the roles of finance and advice at each point in the start up, and scale up, journey for small businesses.
  • GSK: Rethinking healthcare around patients and doctors, from an old model of product-centric selling to a new future of patient-centric wellbeing.
  • Holcim: Helping the world’s largest cement company to accelerate its future in the circular economy, driving new innovations beyond green cement, to new construction systems, regenerating waste materials, and much more.
  • NTT: Working with Japan’s leading tech company to reimagine the future of data-driven organisations, how NTT can most effectively work with its business partners, and become an enable of business transformation, growth and futures.
  • Savola: Supporting the executive team and board to reimagine the future of one of the Middle East’s leading food businesses, new acquisitions, shaping the future strategy, embracing new trends, and driving practical innovations in products, services, and how they are delivered.

More ideas on innovation:

And also