Top 5 Reasons enterprise innovation projects fail

There are five key crucial mistakes that enterprises make when innovating

1 – Replacing one silo with another

Innovation needs to be at the core of business processes. Projects developed in isolation and then worked finto enterprises, struggle to fulfill their potential or make it seamlessly into BAU. This transition is critical to the long term success of innovations. 

! Remember not all silos are technical ones. Functional silos also inhibit innovation – see our recent post Digital Twin computing

2 – Not focusing on a business critical issue

It can be a lot simpler to find funds for a Proof of Value than a BAU project, especially when exploring new technologies. Focus on business critical issues to create compelling business cases. Innovating at the edge away from critical issues struggles to prove out ROI and business value 

! Innovation that doesn’t deliver to the bottom line is doomed to become a part of that 90%

3 – Wasting time on how we collaborate

When bringing innovations together – cooperation is critical in, whether that be across technology areas or departments. However, when we spend too long concentrating on how we collaborate our project the technology links and less about what actually needs to be done.

! Knowledge workers waste 50% of their time hunting for data. Is your innovation project focused on hunting for data or solving a critical business issue?

4 – Not including scalability from day one

Often when we address innovations we worry about the solution to the problem, we don’t think about how we can scale it up into the wider business, whether that be through technology or process. Solutions that aren’t designed to scale to BAU can’t be securely adopted. 

! Innovation projects fail when they are handed off to business. Design in scale across technology, governance and incentives to transition seamlessly 

5 – Not understanding how it will work day-to-day

When we innovate we change the way we do things. Innovation exclusively focused on how things work misses the processes that surround them. Are the right people in position to deal with the changes that are proposed? Do teams have capacity and skills to drive change?  

! Digital transformation drives process transformation – are the teams in place and enabled to adopt innovation. 

To read more about the barriers to successful innovation read why do so many innovation programmes fail. 

If you have an innovation project you think could benefit from IOTICS support why not find out more about our Data for Good Sponsorship Programme or get in touch dataforgood@iotics.com

*Capgemini report