Innovation is a process: 7 Ways to Unleash Innovation in a Big Company

Traditional wisdom says that big companies – complex and encumbered by shareholders, legacy IT systems, and outdated processes - are slow moving and not very innovative.

Meanwhile, start ups and smaller competitors are nimble and able to outpace their sluggish rivals. That version of reality is, in many ways, borne out by recent corporate history with examples such as Blockbuster losing out to Netflix, or Apple’s iPhone swallowing up any demand for RIM’s Blackberries.

Indeed, most large companies follow the basic laws of physics when it comes to innovation: the more mass an object has the greater its momentum. In other words, the bigger you are, the harder it is to stop going the direction you’re already headed.

However, the truth is that big companies have a number of advantages when it comes to innovation. The most obvious one is the resources at their disposal. Big companies have more cash, human capital and customers than start up and smaller competitors. It is, thus, comparatively easier to fund and launch new products and businesses. So why do we have the perception that big companies are no good at innovation?

There are many answers to that question which includes appetite for risk, sources of funding (VC or privately funded ventures are more likely to have a greater ability to take risks than those with shareholders and quarterly earnings pressures), the types of staff the company attracts (those with an entrepreneurial spirit may be more likely to want to work in a small start up than a large global corporation with multiple layers of bureaucracy), and the fact that it’s much more difficult to make a ripple in a big pond than a large one.

So how can a big company find its innovation mojo? Fortunately, there are some proven ingredients that can help a company of any size start to improve its pipeline of new ideas and make sure that it’s not about to go the way of the “Ubersaurs”.

Download the full article to learn seven ideas on how to unleash an innovation process in your organization.