Growing Innovation
Janka Krings-Klebe
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Abstract of my speech on business ecosystems and innovation superclusters at the Global Peter Drucker Forum GPDF in Vienna 2019
Unlike classic collaboration setups, open business ecosystems are not limited in their possibilities. Participating companies can combine their capabilities more quickly in order to jointly exploit new opportunities. Flexibility and speed in cross-company collaboration is what distinguishes ecosystems from other business setups. Innovation superclusters are a special kind of ecosystem, with one additional distinctive feature: They make it simple to quickly grow innovations to profitable size. Innovators in superclusters can easily partner with corporations in joint businesses. The corporations add the punch to quickly grow innovative ideas into profitable operations. They have the resources, the business capabilities, the customer base and the market access that innovators lack at the beginning.
That is the theory. In practice, corporations struggle in adapting to the speed and flexibility required in ecosystems. Their management practices and governance principles are not adequate for joint businesses. These practices are road blocks to quickly connect with promising partners and to set up joint business operations.
Companies like Haier and Amazon show the way to remove these barriers: Corporations have to internally transform their operations into a highly dynamic ecosystem, and learn to manage and govern them according to principles of adaptivity, customer needs and value add. This step is essential to develop management and governance practices that are required in highly dynamic business environments, such as innovation superclusters. Then, and not sooner, corporations can participate and profit in innovation superclusters, quickly bringing in their corporate power to grow promising innovation into big business.
Video to be published soon.
Related article:
Global Peter Drucker Forum Blog: Embracing uncertainty
Blog image: pixabay.com