Peter Drucker once said, “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation. Marketing and Innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.” Yet where do most companies make their first cuts when the economy softens? In Innovation to the Core, Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson plead the case for making Innovation a core business competency in the same way we have done for decades with Quality and Safety. The same steps apply:
- Drive innovation from the top down
- Form a steering team to oversee the process
- Teach everyone in good innovation practices
- Ensure workers’ evaluations are aligned with innovation goals
- Undertake continuous improvement of innovation processes and tools
- Measure innovation effectiveness with a simple and intuitive dashboard of metrics
Without these elements you will likely be frustrated and pessimistic about your company’s ability to innovate reliably and profitably. SCMEP’s Strategic Growth Acceleration is a simple and fast way to establish Innovation as a core competency while also boosting your marketing effectiveness. We have created a pair of free but powerful self-assessment tools to help you better understand your own marketing and innovation gaps. To download these assessments, visit our Innovation and Growth services page. Contact us for additional information and to discuss your results.