Insight

Companies Are Spending More on Innovation —
But Their Biggest Bottleneck Is Still Decision-Making

Reimagining Sales Experiences
by Designing Connected
Ecosystems for
Automotive Retail.

Overview

Innovation has become one of the most heavily funded priorities inside large organisations. New product teams, innovation labs, transformation programmes and venture units are generating more ideas than ever.

Yet the output often doesn't match the investment.

The constraint is increasingly appearing after ideation: deciding which opportunities deserve capital, which should be killed, and how quickly the organisation can move from evidence to commitment.


In other words, organisations don't necessarily have an innovation shortage.

They have a decision-making problem.

Key Insights

Key Insights

Most organisations have become reasonably good at generating concepts. The harder problem is moving those concepts through validation, investment and execution without accumulating layers of approval.

Most organisations have become reasonably good at generating concepts. The harder problem is moving those concepts through validation, investment and execution without accumulating layers of approval.

The bottleneck
moves downstream.

As organisations grow, decisions increasingly require alignment across functions. The result can be consensus without clarity — everyone has a voice, but nobody has clear accountability.

As organisations grow, decisions increasingly require alignment across functions. The result can be consensus without clarity — everyone has a voice, but nobody has clear accountability.

More stakeholders don't necessarily produce better decisions.

A company can say innovation is a priority while its budgets continue to favour existing businesses. Strategy only becomes real when resources move.

A company can say innovation is a priority while its budgets continue to favour existing businesses. Strategy only becomes real when resources move.

Capital allocation is
innovation strategy.

The strongest product organisations don't try to make every idea work. They create explicit evidence gates that allow weak ideas to die cheaply and strong ideas to receive progressively more investment.

The strongest product organisations don't try to make every idea work. They create explicit evidence gates that allow weak ideas to die cheaply and strong ideas to receive progressively more investment.

Good pipelines kill
ideas early.

We're not the only ones saying it

We're not the only
ones saying it

We're not the only ones saying it

0%ORG's align budgets with strategy
0%Startups failed due to poor decisions made
0%Identitied opportunites get funded
0%ORG's align budgets with strategy
0%Startups failed due to poor decisions made
0%Identitied opportunites get funded

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