Innovation Management Model
A MODEL FOR
MANAGING INNOVATION
How can businesses effectively manage innovation?
Having helped countless companies across the globe find and implement solutions for getting innovative ideas out the door, we keep finding ourselves arriving at very similar conclusions and frameworks addressing a recurrent set of pain points. This report presents a tried-and-tested model for managing innovation and shares practical insights that anyone involved in the innovation process can start applying.
The drive to innovate is top of mind for companies across virtually all industries. While organizations may have lots of creative energy floating around waiting to be channeled, business leaders are constantly seeking to find reliable, results-driven models to manage innovation effectively – taking raw ideas and transforming them into impactful products & services.
THE CHALLENGE AT HAND
CMOs, CPOs, marketeers and strategists often find themselves in uncharted terrain when dealing with product and service innovation. This is due to a number of challenges: Consumers are increasingly ruling the narrative, product/service creation and sharing are becoming more and more democratized, startups are pulverizing competition and calls for ESG and social advocacy are getting more vocal – just to name a few.
At the same time, they have to deal with significant overlap with more conventional ways of doing business. This requires business leaders to account for traditional needs and real-life problems such as:
- organizing and aligning massive internal structures and external ecosystems,
- managing many stakeholders, activities and interdependencies and
- dealing with pressure from margins, cash generation, lifetimes and portfolio sizes.
This combination of novel challenges and conventional business demands leaves executives in an uncomfortable juggling act with diverse sources of pressure – from delivering results and balancing time-to-market to strengthening their brand image and innovating beyond the core business.
A MODEL SOLUTION
Effective innovation rests on a balance of raw creative energy that sprouts future products/services and commercial prowess involving the skills and capabilities needed to ultimately reach target consumers. Integration’s Innovation Management Model comprises four elements that orient businesses in establishing a link between these two core elements.
THE BENEFITS
We should also be clear on what the innovation management model presented in this report does not address: boosting creativity, grasping the necessities of your customers or learning to be incremental versus disruptive when innovating.
While these may also be burning issues for many companies, the model we present here is specifically concerned with how to develop and take new products and services to market. It’s meant to serve as a toolkit of steps for managing innovation – from initial ideas through to final product launch.
Experience shows that the benefits of having these elements in place are indisputable. Applying an effective innovation management model has proven to:
Setting up for deployment
Depending on the nature of the business and the context in which it operates, each company will need to approach innovation in a way that most effectively responds to its own reality. Regardless of your specific situation, the innovation management model presented here includes the basic and most essential pillars required to successfully innovate in today’s business environment.
TALK TO US
André Valente
André Valente is a partner at Integration and a leader within the Marketing & Sales Practice. With nearly two decades of experience supporting clients across diverse sectors and geographies, André is a specialist in the topics of innovation management, digital and data solutions, go-to-market models, market-entry strategies and global marketing approaches.
Augusto Ribeiro
Augusto Ribeiro is a partner at Integration and has been working since 2003 in the Marketing & Sales practice. Augusto built a solid international experience, leading and implementing strategic Marketing & Sales projects in industries ranging from Consumer Goods through Construction & Property Development to the Financial Industry, especially in the Private Equity sector.
Guido Solari
Guido Solari is a partner at Integration and the head of our LATAM offices. Guido joined the company in 2006 and is part of the Marketing & Sales Practice. He has carried out over 250 projects across Latin America, North America and Europe, serving clients in the areas of mass consumer goods, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, media [...]
Jamie Gale
Jamie Gale is a partner at our London Office. He has spent more than 25 years in the consulting industry and private sector. Jamie is recognized for his extensive experience in digital, developing and executing strategies that enable business transformation. He has supported clients across manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, financial services, food & beverage and transportation [...]
Jonathan Ezban
Jonathan Ezban is a director at Integration and has been working since July 2011 in the practice of Marketing & Sales. Prior to Integration, Jonathan was an Analyst at The Friedman Group, where he developed projects related to Sales Budgets for retail companies in Mexico. Within Integration, we can highlight his experience in Market Scan [...]
Sven Hoffmann
Sven Hoffmann is a senior manager at Integration's Munich Office. His experience covers projects in the areas of strategic planning and roadmaps, organizational and process redesigns, go-to-markets and innovation systems. Sven has worked in projects across Asia, Europe, North and South America. He holds a master's degree in technology management from the Technical University of [...]
- On 7 December 2023
