Below is the text of my recent post at Blogging Innovation:
It is critical that businesses have a clear sense of the state of their current marketplace. They need to understand the needs of their customers, the relevant business models, the competition… But all of this is only good for keeping the lights on today. It does nothing to insure the future viability of a company because the world changes. New competitors emerge from nowhere. Business models grow stale and new ones are created. Customer needs change. In order to insure a healthy future, companies must remain aware of emerging trends, identify which are relevant and develop plans for responding.
But who should do that? The market research or insights group? Marketing? Sales? R&D? Well of course the answer is yes. Every employee ought to maintain a healthy curiosity about their world and do their best to help the company see around corners. But this is not enough. For one thing, these employees have day jobs. Their job is to keep the lights on today. You can add another task to their list but don’t imagine for a moment that their current responsibilities won’t suffer just a little bit. Secondly, if every employee does this, the company will have quite a bit of trend information and will need to separate the wheat from the chaff and synthesize meaningful insights. And, finally, this all needs to be integrated with the overall vision and strategy of the company.
I believe companies ought to establish standalone innovation groups that would be responsible (among other things) for identifying, interpreting and planning against emerging trends. These groups should report into the CEO directly who must make innovation a top priority – as important as keeping the lights on today. Attitudes need to change. Given the pace of the business environment (which is only getting faster), a company has got to identify its next move before such a move is needed. This is a matter of survival and only by treating trend management as a core competency can a company have any hope of long-term success.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Adam, thank for the insightful post. I agree with you. I would even suggest that these innovation groups reporting directly into the CEO need to be thinking not only about the next move, but also a few moves into the future.
These groups need to be constantly refreshed with new hires and “old hands”. I would suggest that all brand managers need to spend a year in the innovation group before they move into director positions. Their promotion should be predicated on a good innovation group stint.
As always, Tom
Tom:
Brilliant ideas! I love them. Thanks for the comment.
Adam