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If You Want to be in Front, Lead from Behind

Posted by on 09 January 2017
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End of Innovation Conference Keynote
Tamara
St. Claire
CIO:
Xerox Healthcare
Three
key tools for Xerox Healthcare's innovation efforts:
1. Lean Start Up model:
Based on a non-conventional approach to management to act more like a start up,
not assuming you know what the market wants. Build. Measure. Learn'this is the
cycle of Lean Start Up. Then, build MVP, minimally viable product, which is a
way to test customer reactions. Develop criteria for success. Should you pivot
or persevere? This process manages the chaos and uncertainty of new product
development.
2.
Business Model Canvas model: Forget writing business plans, write business canvas
models. The vital concept is that it distills down the value on one page, which
is all that any executive has time to devote on a new idea. These canvases can
be evergreen and dynamic. This tool helps
you map, design, and create new business models. You can map out the whole business
model on one canvas.
3.
Getting
Out of the Building
: Your business plans will never survive your first
customer. Take the hypothesis into the market and test. Remember, it's not a
sales call. This is not a Voice of the Customer exercises. This is a What If
exploration, an opportunity to both pressure test a model and learn what may
make it better.
These three concepts are practices we use everyday in my
innovation group, says St. Claire. What I want to share is why Chief Innovation
Officer role is important. Having someone who is responsible with real metrics
for innovation is critical for innovation to take root.
Five Tools for Innovation:

1.
Strategy: So many organizations do not have
strategies; it is staggering. Innovation must be tied to the strategy.
Strategy defines the sandbox that innovation can play in. Guardrails of
strategy are important. Conversely, innovation can inform strategy. It's a yin
and yang, strategy and innovation. These forces must collaborate.
2.
Ethnography: Many companies have a
technology-led innovation. Ethnography keeps the focus on the problem, not the
solution. Ethnography is the study of human behavior in a culture. Using real
insights from real people can inspire innovation teams to create really
necessary and obvious solutions.
3.
Market Timing: Being too early to the market is
just as bad as being too late. At PARC they invented the tablet 15 years before
the iPad. Gartner's Hype Cycle is a lifecycle method. Here is the 2016 version:

a.
Technology Trigger: a new technology
breakthrough. No practical application. No real viability. 10 or more years
will be spent before the technology is widespread.
b.
Peak of Inflated Expectations: you have a few
successes and many failures. Here is where the lemmings of VCs jump in.
Categories include: autonomous cars, connected home.
c.
Trough of Disillusionment: example, augmented
reality.
d.
Slope of Enlightenment: here you see the 2.0s
and 3.0s and strategics begin to invest. Example: virtual reality.
e.
Plateau of Productivity: example: Enterprise
Cloud.
And yet, there is 'no real easy answer to
market timing.' There is one view that if you take a niche product to an
early-adopter market and get traction, then you may have the ability to scale.
4. Build, Buy & Partner
Often M&A groups, marketing, and RND
all have their own silos, all going in various directions. If they can all
coordinate and ladder up to a shared strategy, then they can work in sync.
We have a series of formal question to vet
whether to build, buy, or partner. You must be able to build a business case
that justifies the acquisition. Having these three levers'build, buy, or
partner'are critical to get to market effectively and with impact.
5. External Communications: Before we entered
the space, we had a two-year plan to establish thought leadership in
telemedicine. This 'Trojan horse' method works as a powerful tool to socialize
ideas and establish a position and point of view around possible areas of
exploration.
Innovation cannot happen in a silo. The whole
innovation ecosystem is critical to our mission. Bringing relationships with
VCs, incubators, and ventures allows us to see the 'froth,' the areas that are
emerging. We need to all collaborate more, partner deeper, to truly innovate.
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