Quickly and easily stimulate 
your innovation capacity
Timely, targeted coaching in the form of short, straightforward workshops is in high demand. To meet this need, Beauchesne and Associates ’ advisors have developed 12 "Expresso Innovation" interventions that are specifically designed to help businesses increase their innovation capacity.
12 competitively-priced interventions (usually under $ 5,000): our "Expresso Innovation" interventions include the planning and implementation of activities addressing any of the following topics: Strategic Thrust - Confirming the innovation strategy
- Strategic road-mapping
- Prioritizing and selecting innovation projects
- Setting up a strategic watch unit
Front End Innovation Thrust - Setting up a front end of innovation practice
- Planning a "customer voice" field study, i.e. how to gather the customer’s voice and translate it into innovation targets
- Applied creativity sessions
Development Thrust - Designing a product development process
- Managing the risks of an innovation project
- Developing a high-performance team for an innovation project
- Planning an innovation project
Action Plan - Diagnosis and action plan to increase innovation capabilities
For more information, click on one of the links, send an email to: innovation@zba.ca, or call (514) 861-0809, Extension 1118. Strategic Thrust - Confirming the innovation strategy to answer the following questions:
- Does your company have a winning innovation strategy?
- How will your company create and keep its competitive advantages?
- Has your company targeted the markets in which it wants to establish itself?
- Has your company decided which technologies it will rely on to keep growing?
- How can your company protect its intellectual property and should it?
- Can your company rely on technology partners to support it?
- Strategic road-mapping to:
- Anticipate technological and market changes in developing innovative products
- Bridge the gap between market opportunities, new products and technology
- Develop key competencies or necessary strategic alliances to exploit an opportunity
- Develop a 3 to 5 year innovation action plan
- Prioritizing and selecting innovation projects to:
- Implement the innovation strategy after choosing which projects are most relevant to the company
- Maximize the value of innovation project investments
- Balance projects in function of:
- Short, medium and long-term objectives
- Different markets
- Different risk levels
- Different product categories
- Ensure the necessary resources and establish the right number of projects
- Rally all company stakeholders around common goals
- Setting up a strategic watch unit to identify and monitor:
- Market trends
- Technology trends
- The actions of competitors
- Legal and regulatory developments which may affect the company
This activity fuels the front end of innovation practice presented in the next section. Front End of Innovation Thrust - Setting up a front end of innovation practice to:
- Ensure that the company’s innovation is not random, improvised or a reaction to an external trigger (new regulation, new competitor, new technology, client request, etc.)
- Regularly structure and organize front end of innovation activities
- Fully exploit the various innovation sources available to the company
- Identify and explore new opportunities
- Take advantage of a problem which the company or its clients is experiencing or will experience
- Generate and test new ideas and new innovative concepts which may become added-value innovation projects
- Planning a "customer voice" field study to:
- Identify customer needs through a series of in-depth meetings
- Determine expectations and "wow" customers
- Identify weaknesses in the company’s product and service offerings
- Determine the product attributes of greatest value to customers
- Applied creativity sessions of different durations to:
- Find possible solutions to market or product problems
- Identify new business opportunities to help the company grow
- Generate new ideas for new products or services
- Generate new ideas to exploit an opportunity or solve a problem
- Etc.
Development Thrust - Designing a product development process to:
- Optimize development activities
- Establish rigour and quality during the implementation phase
- Prevent setbacks and reduce development times
- Ensure production efficiency and reduce costs
- Clearly define roles and responsibilities to maximize the use of resources
Note: Excluding the implementation process - Managing the risks of an innovation project from the onset to:
- Identify unknowns, activities or environmental factors which are likely to derail the project
- Ensure contingency plans and alternatives
- Cope with different scenarios which could affect the success of the project
- Reduce risk levels and increase the project’s chances of success
- Developing a high-performance team for an innovation project to:
- Assess the potential of people who will responsible for the project
- Develop and equip the team with high-performance project management tools
- Train stakeholders on best project management practices such as :
- Correctly defining and clarifying the mandate
- Planning and organizing mandate-related activities
- Making things happen as anticipated in the planning stage
- Planning an innovation project to:
- Ensure the company is going in the right direction and not forgetting anything along the way
- Optimize the achievement of certain tasks
- Maximize the use of resources
- Facilitate communication among stakeholders and collaborators
- Better monitor the work of collaborators at all stages
- Outline the scope, costs and timelines of the project
- Ensure reference points and follow-up mechanisms
Action Plan : - Diagnosis and action plan to increase the company’s innovation capacity
- Although most companies are aware of the importance of innovating and increasing their capacity to innovate in the short-term, several issues can prevent them from taking action, such as:
- Where to start?
- How to rally everyone around a common goal to increase the company’s ability to innovate?
- How to make the innovation project a company effort?
For more information :
send an e-mail to : innovation@zba.ca or call (514) 861-0809, Extension 1118
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