Crisis Innovation Guide: Organisation and Ecosystem (part 4 of 5)

Before you get to the innovation drawing board, it is essential that you gain a thorough understanding of the exact challenges and opportunities that your organisation is facing. We are not in a high-roll poker game. There is no need for irrational, heat-of-the-moment, all-or-nothing moves. It is all about growth and that should remain your key focus. Devising an effective growth strategy is an essential first step in achieving your goals.

We distinguish between four areas of innovation:

In this article, we provide guidelines on how you can innovate your organisation in response to the second set of key challenges: organisation and ecosystem.

An organisation is a system of people, resources, processes and culture; the interplay of which aims to add value to society. The importance of effective leadership intensifies during periods of crisis. Now more than ever, it is essential to innovate, adapt and inspire resilience in your team. We give you a list of eight tips to help you guide your organisation through the current turbulence.

The world we live in is constantly changing and adapting. Innovation projects take time to bring results. Successful entrepreneurs attribute their success to an ability to adopt a long-term timeframe. Consider life like a game of chess: those who emerge victorious are those who strategically plan ahead.

As important as it is to avoid making rash decisions, times of crisis require steely determination and ruthless decisiveness. Hesitation is simply not an option.

One pitfall of crisis leadership is wanting to take on too much and having too much control over decisions and processes. Be aware that this will only slow down your organisation’s response and create frustration among employees. Trust your staff and give them the autonomy they need to make a difference.

Crises are called crises because they affect people. Don’t get caught up with numbers and statistics. Treat your employees with respect and honesty and it will pay off in the long run. Every crisis has heroes and villains. Which one do you want to be?

Start thinking about what skills your workforce will require in the years ahead (adaptability, interpersonal skills, digital skills, etc.). Bear in mind some of the immediate challenges your employees might be facing: burnouts, productivity drops from remote working, feedback through digital platforms, you name it. Find appropriate learning strategies and tools to help your staff adjust to the ‘new normal’ in the short term and to make your organisation proficient and future-proof for the long run.

Periods of change create momentum for innovative behaviour. This innovation spirit needs to be celebrated and embedded in your culture. Don’t rest on your laurels!

The arrival of digital platforms has led to a shift in our understanding of the term ‘competition’. The days of war and sabotage are behind us. We need to embrace the concept of cooperative ecosystems, where we can collaborate with our competitors, pool our insights and combine our knowledge, establish industry-specific networks and highly complementary value chains to create true value for customers.

As a leader you should be close to your customers, big and small. You should personally give them a call, run webinars or put other interactive encounters in place that will help you learn about their needs, wants and concerns. Designing new products and services has become a co-creation process with the client producing and consuming at the same time.

In a crisis, one needs to find new ways to solve pressing problems and at the same time build a positive reputation. We know that solutions to complex problems may come from non-conventional methods. The recent burst of open innovation reminds us of its massive potential, whether you’re in a crisis or not. Open innovation has the potential to widen the space for value creation: it allows for many more ways to create value, be it through new partners with complementary skills or by unlocking hidden potential in long-lasting relationships.

Despite the enthusiasm, companies rarely follow through on open innovation. We have witnessed how companies have used hackathons and other forms of open innovation to generate heaps of creative ideas that never reach the point of implementation, leading to frustration among employees and partners. For many companies, this distributed, decentralised, and participatory way of innovating remains an ambition that hasn’t yet materialised.

As we adopt a wider definition of ecosystem, we see other players in the market: those we compete with for the resources and recipients in the ecosystem. Competition is great for a healthy ecosystem, and as Darwin said it is not the strongest or most intelligent that survives, but the most responsive. To be responsive, one needs to be fully aware of the threats to a business world in transition, but also see it as an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and redesign the existing structures and practices of the business model, the organisation, and the ways to deliver. Competitors can clearly be a threat, but also an opportunity.

We have seen companies quickly changing production lines or even building new ones practically overnight. This shows that organisations are capable of rapidly entering markets that are completely new to them. It also shows that competition can come from anywhere: from existing players in other markets to startups and open source projects.

Although we might be more focused on our own organisation, products and processes, the current market shake-up is clearly shifting customer needs and creates new spaces to fill. Identifying these spaces requires active scouting. We should remember that the competitive power of the future needs to be built today.

This article is the fourth part of a larger series of five contributions, which together constitute a ‘Crisis Innovation Guide’; a guide with tips and tools on how innovation can help your organisation prepare for the turbulent period ahead. The guide is constructed around multiple scientific and opinion articles, interviews with researchers, and input from various webinars and conferences, the sum of which provides an overview of the latest talking points of the COVID-19 crisis.

From 16 November 2020 onwards, every week will see a new contribution as part of the Crisis Innovation Guide. The guide will be made available as a downloadable PDF to members of UMIO Prime as of 14 December 2020 through the UMIO Prime app. The app also provides access to all available articles of the series until now.

If you feel our expertise on innovation can help you and your organisation get ahead, please get in touch and let’s start creating an impact together!