6 Degrees of Innovation

It is often said that you are only ever 6 steps away from anyone.  In a world that small, where information is distributed in fractions of a second, can the same must be said for Innovation. It begs the question that if innovation is readily available – what does it look like?

1. The big bet
2. The inventive step
3. The appreciable improvement
4. The adaptation
5. The recreation
6. The fail

We tend to ignore everything but the big bet and the fail. That is a travesty. The steps in the middle are the activities most likely to currently exist in your business. Not recognising them could be costly in terms of employee engagement, wasted investment, and damage the R&D tax credit claims that are on offer.

Almost every business has some degree of innovation and where companies have grown from acquisition or manage in a micro P&L way, identifying where the assets are, is a growing concern for many companies. So it doesn’t get lost, track what could be valuable Intellectual Property or what should take management’s interest.

Our three rules to make sure you minimise the degrees of separation are:

1. Talk about innovation broadly and encourage it
2. Each business unit reports on initiatives – don’t define it, let the teams decide
3. Track the costs of innovations

Source Advisors is a leading innovation specialist who works with companies in the UK to maximise and commercialise their innovations.

Call us on 01727 738600 to find out more.