Innovation
Innovators deliberately set themselves illogical challenges and systematically shift performance limits by solving them! Contradictions are seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of objectives. "Can't is a good start though!" The illogicality of innovation is to nevertheless demand the fulfillment of both goals.
Innovation is more than economic success
According to Schumpeter, substantive innovation dimensions are new products, new production methods, new markets, new sources of supply and new ways of organizing the company. Francis/Bessant supplement this list with paradigm innovation, which can be equated with business model innovation.
According to Drucker, innovation can be understood as "change that creates a new dimension of performance". This definition reflects the normative dimension of innovation - the perspective of success.
The intensity dimension plays a key role in innovation. This ranges from invention and incremental innovation to disruptive and radical innovation.
Radical innovations are based on the development or application of something significantly new. The process-related innovation dimension plays a decisive role here. Different intensities result in different scopes. From a subjective perspective, these are: new for the company, new for the market, new for the industry and new for the world.
As a systemic construct, business model innovation combines and integrates all other types of innovation. Business model innovation seeks the intelligent use of the new degree of freedom in the business model that results in the greatest, sustainable added value for all stakeholders. The search for new degrees of freedom therefore fundamentally describes the success factor in innovation design.
Innovations require a strategic focus on the unknown
"An innovation describes a (contradictory) solution that results in sustainable added value for all stakeholders through the intelligent use of new degrees of freedom."
Innovators deliberately set themselves illogical challenges and systematically shift performance limits by solving them! Contradictions are seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of objectives. "Can't is a good start though!" The illogicality of innovation is to nevertheless demand the fulfillment of both goals.
We have to learn to deal with issues faster and faster that the company does not yet have the expertise to solve in-house.
In today's world, we need to be aware that innovations are increasingly breaking with traditional industry rules, are based on competencies from outside the industry and therefore generally remain invisible or are stopped in the usual innovation processes,
before they have a chance. Innovation can only be logically argued from a retrospective perspective.
Innovations overcome the logic of previous performance limits
The identification of new degrees of freedom therefore requires transdisciplinary orientation, even from outside the industry. Fundamental patterns of higher development characterize permanent change. They already describe development stages today that will only be taken in the future. They are a strong source of inspiration in the search for new degrees of freedom and offer a higher degree of certainty in argumentation and forecasting.