Executive Mastermind

The Innovation Incubator Model

In times of increasingly complex challenges appearing almost overnight, from areas way beyond where an organisation may have been considering, we need new ways to deal with organisational change and evolution.

Technology development, instant communication and media access can be powerful tools for economic success and profitability for an organisation. But they can also be the reasons or vehicles for failure – it’s a double edged sword.

What can we do to guard against and perhaps even harness these challenges?

The Innovation Incubator

Each organisation must be working in two directions at once in these delicate and challenging areas.  Firstly to guard against competitors and unseen threats damaging the business, and secondly, to be ready to take advantage of the new developments, technology and concepts to solve the challenges the organisation already has, or will face, and keep it ahead of the field.

This is where the Innovation Incubator can be most valuable. Installed as a module or component of a business or organisation, it can be scaled to suit the challenges and commercialise outcomes as and when needed.

The Aims of an Innovation Incubator

Every organisation faces challenges, whether from competitors, technology advances, evolution of business practices leaving them behind, legislative changes, acts of God or any one of a multitude of other problems that can arise.  Whilst they often impact a particular business or organisation directly, rarely are they a problem in isolation.  Many similar businesses and organisations will be facing the same challenges, each struggling to come up with their own solution.

The Innovation Incubator takes the problem solving a step further, by specifically establishing a unit to not only solve the problem or challenge, but to commercialising the solution and possibly selling it to other organisations that require it.

The Intellectual Property of an organisation is rapidly becoming the balance sheet item that impacts the valuation more than anything else.  In this age of technology, this intellectual property signifies a great deal more than just the IP – it shows that the organisation is aware of the value of intellectual property and values the process of obtaining it.  It shows that it is one of the rare few organisations that leads the way into the future, rather than waiting to read about it in the industry magazines.

Can any organisation have an Innovation Incubator?

Yes, with reservations.  It needs to be scaled to the operation of the organisation as they require resourcing and capital to establish and operate.  However, provided they have the capital and resourcing required, they can become a stand-alone business model, a profit centre in their own right.

Different Innovation Incubator options include:

• Local or Regional Council Department, aimed at developing business, industry and economic activity within a region, whilst enhancing community involvement and integration, employment and social welfare.
• Major Corporation, to solve commercial and industrial problems and challenges within the business or industry.
• Consultancy model, designed to operate independently and on behalf of other organisations.
• Small business, where the core business of the operations works alongside the Innovation Incubator, turning the IP of the Innovation Incubator into products and services.
• Problem Solver model, where an Innovation Incubator is set up to solve specific challenges and scaled up or down as required.
• Community Organisation, aimed at solving specific community challenges.

 

Do all Innovation Incubators have to be set up to commercialise their outcomes?

No.  An organisation may establish an Innovation incubator as a way of solving problems they are experiencing which do not have a commercial outcome, but perhaps a community outcome instead.  The development of solutions is the primary reason for establishing an Innovation incubator.  The solution is then the property of the organisation and they can do as they please with it and commercialisation may not be an intention.

Click this image to open a PowerPoint Slideshow on the Innovation Incubator

Can your organisation establish an Innovation Incubator?

Very likely.  The questions you need to answer for yourself and your organisation are:

How much am I prepared to invest into a business model that may not produce cashflow for the next year, but is likely to generate exponential outcomes in the years to follow?

What is the cost of the challenges my organisation is facing right now, that an Innovation incubator would work on solving?

Do I have the available administration resources to manage this Innovation Incubator while it works, independently of my organisation?

Do I have the patience to wait for outcomes, knowing it might be a year or more before it creates a tangible outcome?

How does an Innovation Incubator work?

An external facilitator is a prime requirement for the Innovation Incubator, because a key component is objectivity.  Quite often, the answers to problems are staring us in the face but because they have become part of the landscape, they become invisible to the locals, whilst immediately obvious to fresh eyes!

“You can’t do your own brain surgery!”

Ray Jamieson is the external facilitator in this program, and applies sound business consulting experience and questioning techniques to members of the Innovation Incubator, to draw from them the solutions to the problems presented.

Once solutions and options are presented, they are put through a process of testing before one or more are chosen to investigate fully.

Once a solution is locked-in, the next step is safeguarding the intellectual property, and where possible, commercialising the outcome.

Whilst commercialisation is not possible every time, it can be an incredibly rewarding outcome where it can be done.  Other companies and people had that challenge, and your Innovation Incubator found the solution and took ownership of it!  It can become a product or service available for direct sale, or under royalty or a licence structure, depending on the product or service.

It may even become a major part of your new business model and cashflow source!

An example of a successful Innovation Incubator outcome:

Early in the life of the Innovation Incubator model, I was working with a Queensland State Government department, which was implementing a statewide computer management system upgrade.  The system required all Corporate Service team members using the system to have training in the new program, and the statewide rollout meant a shutdown for at least 3 days to enable the switch-over to occur.

However, the rollout and training wasn’t working.  It was behind in schedule and the training wasn’t effective – the people just were’t ‘getting it’.

We put the problems through an “Innovation Incubator” process and once we looked at it with fresh eyes and objectivity, it became obvious that the training program had been designed with the implementation in the wrong order, and the training models in the computer were not aligned with the manuals because of updates in the training. As a result, people were being trained out of sequence and it just wasn’t making any sense to them.

The problem was reported to the implementation team in Brisbane Head office (we were working in a regional office at the time) and the whole training program was reworked and started over.

The result was that the training then took days, instead of weeks to implement statewide.  And best of all, the team where I facilitated the Innovation Incubator program was the first from around the whole state to get business flowing through it again – they actually framed the first document through the new system and sent copies state-wide for bragging rights!

The dollar savings here were enormous – a department with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars annually had ground to a halt, and this program, operating from a training room in Central Queensland provided the solution!

Where to from here?

If you are interested in looking more closely at an Innovation Incubator for your organisation, please contact Ray Jamieson below and provide a brief description of your situation.  We will be happy to assess the opportunities for you.

CONTACT US