Why corporate innovation is so difficult

Why corporate innovation is so difficult

innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com – We innovators need to learn to be careful with our language. Too often I hear people conflating words like innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. The fact is that these are all intertwined but subtly different words with very different challenges. To me, invention is the easiest. Everyone can be, and often is, an inventor. You may invent a new way of doing things, a new tool, a new insight or perspective. But mere invention doesn’t necessarily mean that you “scale” it so others also benefit. No, for that you need “entrepreneurship” – the ability to take a good idea or invention and build a business around it. That’s a slightly more difficult challenge. History is littered with good inventions or technologies that no one could build a business around, or where many tried and failed. The benefit that entrepreneurs have over corporate innovators is that they must support and sustain only one idea. An entrepreneur should have one really good idea or invention and place all of his or her effort behind that idea. A corporate innovator should similarly place all of his or her effort behind an idea, but must confront the fact that there are hundreds of other existing products and services demanding attention and investment, as well as dozens of other potential ideas or avenues to pursue. This prioritization and resource allocation issue is one of the reasons that corporate innovation is so much more difficult that mere invention or becoming an entrepreneur.