A lack of progress in organizational innovation efforts can be easily explained by a tendency to conflate innovation with research and development — when in reality, R&D is only one small piece of the ideal innovation strategy, per the Harvard Business Review.
That strategy should comprise three distinct segments: discovery, incubation and acceleration, with R&D making up only part of the discovery segment. According to HBR, "Corporate leaders need to recognize that developing business applications, revenue models and markets for new products often requires as much time and resources and deserves as much emphasis as inventing the technologies themselves."
With this framework in mind, organizations hoping to pursue true, long-lasting innovation must commit to building a "robust innovation capacity," offering guidance and support far beyond simply providing financial backing for research efforts.
"It's remarkable that innovation, a principle worshiped in the modern business world, is still so widely misunderstood," the HBR article concluded. "As business leaders increasingly call for a focus on long-term value creation, they can only achieve this by expanding beyond R&D to develop the capacity for truly breakthrough innovation. A strong innovation function should be the norm for any well-functioning, sustainable company. Without it, remarkable technologies fall flat and fail to break through into new businesses."
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