Innovation Strategy
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Innovation Strategy

Many companies recognise the importance of innovation in developing R&I projects and activities, but some find it challenging to develop the most efficient strategy, processes and organisational and financial resources. This priority of integrating innovation into a company’s management must also be combined with other relevant currents of change (digital transformation, social impact…).

An appropriate innovation strategy allows for these transformational challenges to be addressed in a coordinated and effective manner, from an integrated perspective. It is the link between the definition and development of new products or services and a company’s overall business strategy. With the appropriate innovation strategy, a company can integrate, into its business strategy, all the elements necessary to bring new products or services forward on the market.

What does an Innovation Strategy entail?

We have a team of experts in Innovation Strategy, led by Guillermo Dorronsoro, Management Board Advisor at Zabala Innovation, who can help make the link between “Strategy” and “Innovation.”

Here are some tips on how to elaborate an effective innovation strategy:

  • Develop a long-term plan: consider the need to change the way planning is done, combining elements of “deliberate strategy” (the classic plans) with elements of “emergent strategy.” In this second scheme, it is assumed that priorities will emerge and develop as the organisation moves forward.
  • Improve the company’s competitiveness: the objective of an innovation strategy, when embedded in the business plan, is to stimulate competitiveness.
  • Implement the plan, with a broad perspective of the external market, and adapt it so that it is coherent with changes in the ecosystems.
  • But this plan is a living, long-term plan, so it needs to be adapted as we integrate learning or achieve specific milestones.

Our figures

+35

Years of experience in innovation consultancy in the company

2018

Year of approval of the latest version of the Oslo Manual

2019

Year of approval of ISO 56000 (Innovation Management)

+40%

Percentage of companies finding it difficult to prioritise innovation

Frequently asked questions

  • How do I know if my company needs a new innovation strategy?

    Do you identify with these questions?

    “We don’t have a strategic/business plan”; “We want to organise R&D in the company a bit better, it is not very clear how we fit into the organisation”; “We find it difficult to connect R&D activity with the strategy, the other departments and/or business units”; “We have a different culture, we speak a different language, our rhythms don’t fit”.

    If so, you need to define an innovation strategy in your organisation.

  • What is ISO 56000?

    ISO 56000 or Innovation Management: is the fourth in an eight-part series of standards and other guidance documents designed to help organisations use the correct terminology for innovation management and communicate consistently about their processes, achievements, and learning paths.

    It provides the vocabulary, concepts, and fundamental principles of innovation management, and is useful for organisations that want to make their innovation management activities visible and credible.

Guillermo Dorronsoro

“Does your organisation "embrace change" naturally and systematically? That is the differentiator. The real value-creation mechanism”

Guillermo Dorronsoro

Management Board Advisor / Executive Committee