Service offering
Innovation performance improvement
Many companies focus on innovation to gain competitive advantage and, given the powerful characteristics of technology, many of them concentrate on technology-enabled innovation. This demands an effective interaction between business functions involved in technology management (such as R&D) and market-facing business functions (such as marketing), in order to achieve a good balance between market-pull and technology-push.
Organisational structures can sometimes get in the way of technology and innovation. We use a proven framework called SPROC to assess a company’s ability to innovate and make recommendations on how to improve
However, in many cases fundamental problems prevent companies delivering their full potential. The problems may manifest themselves in a number of ways:
- a perception that R&D is not connected with day to day business realities
- lack of long term direction, resulting in many incremental projects
- never ending projects, handed from department to department
- R&D intensity which is much higher or lower than competitors
- risk aversion, leading to only low risk, low reward projects being undertaken
- a 'not-invented-here' or 'reinventing the wheel' culture
- poor communication between marketing and R&D
At Sagentia we help clients deliver technology-enabled innovation. Our involvement usually begins with an innovation assessment where we assess the ability of the company to perform innovation, comparing them directly to our knowledge of best practice within their sector. We use a proven, robust framework called SPROC to do this:
S – Strategy (business and technology)
P – Processes, tools and systems (for carrying out technology-enabled innovation
R – Resources and environment (for carrying out technology-enabled innovation )
O – Organisation, people and metrics (for carrying out technology-enabled innovation )
C – Culture (as it affects the ability to be innovative)
Experience has shown that, after completion of the innovation assessment, productive changes can be made in one or more of the SPROC dimensions. These changes range from quick-win actions to more fundamental strategies that could have a significant cost to the business. In order to justify the necessary investment, we help our clients develop a business case, showing how improved performance justifies the incurred cost. We then work side by side with our clients to help them implement the changes and deliver the planned benefits from improved innovation.