subject: Stay Ahead of the Competition with Adaptive Innovation [print this page] To adapt to one's dynamic market demands, the organization's relationship-centric DNA must focus its innovation investments on a succinct understanding of the customer's needs coupled with strong marketing and investment planning. In adaptive innovation, seven critical metrics can be greatly enhanced through the systematic and disciplined capitalization of intra-company, as well as external strategic relationships.
Sales Expansion
Gross Margin Percentage
Gross Profit Growth
Operating Margin Percentage
Operating Income Growth
Total Shareholder Profits
Market Capitalization Growth
The broad-based identification and leveraging of companywide expertise in a multitude of functions, developed over a period of time, can create a very sustainable competitive advantage. Adaptive innovation must be fueled by those at the edge of business, often the closest to the voice of the customer. Those investments made for longer horizons focus on creating profitable growth.
Adaptive innovation also forces the organization to focus on and invest in its most valuable asset its portfolio of intra-company as well as externally focused relationships. In all of the organizations we have worked with over the years, I have yet to meet a chief best practices officer. So, whose role is it to capture and leverage the pockets of best practices that abound in any organization?
Innovation aims to leapfrog the competition, and to truly shape an entire industry. Adaptive innovation is about doing things differently. This approach requires a relationship-centric culture with the courage to fail and learn from those failures. It is not about simply imitating the strategies of others through traditional value add, but shaping one's own destiny.
It is important to note that innovation is a process with multiple enablers, contributors, and positive components. A single ad never works. Advertising often just contributes to the noise. But when you innovate, the market seeks you out.
Stay Ahead of the Competition with Adaptive Innovation
