It is difficult it is to identify companies that have scalable business models AND equally important will they be able to execute their business plans. We have been working on this challenge now for over 4 years.In the past, a few interviews and some financial analysis might have been enough. Today, markets are more complex, and businesses are harder to evaluate. To solve this challenge have recently combined over 10 years of research on more than 10,000 companies to create an assessment that objectively measures: 1/. Scalability of the business 2/. And their ability to deliver innovation consistently. The accuracy of our assessments are very good. Right now, with a 1-hour assessment, we are able to correctly classify businesses by scalability and able to predict just under 80% of their variance of innovation success

1. Personalized Report for :
Your target company
Analysis

2. Why is this report important ?
It is difficult to objectively evaluate if a company will be a
winner or not. Interviews, financial analysis and
business plans are not enough anymore to guarantee a
successful investment.
The solution is to go from subjective
to objective measures.
This report measures 2 key elements in a objective way:
• Scalability of the business.
• Ability to deliver innovation consistently.
This is based on a database of several thousand
companies and 4 years of research. The results
that follow are compared against this research

3. The Hard Facts
75% of venture-backed startups fail
94% of companies are unhappy with their ability
to innovate
99% companies value innovation
5% are classified as
innovative by their peers

4. How to use this report ?
INVESTABILITY RANKING
• This is a 0 -10 score
BUILD ON STRENGTHS
• Focus on the innovation capabilities and
exponential attributes where you have
strengths
ONE RIGHT THING AT A TIME
• When a companies work on too many
things progress doesn’t happen. You also
need to on the right thing now

5. How to use this report ?
INVESTABILITY RANKING
• This is a 0 - 10 score
BUILD ON BRIGHT SPOTS
(STRENGHTS)
• Focus on the innovation
capabilities and exponential
attributes where you are good at
ONE RIGHT THING AT A TIME
• When companies work on too
many things progress doesn’t
happen. You also need to go on
the right thing now
Scalability
Able to execute
innovation
Take-off
Could be’sLaggards
Wanna be’s

6. How to use this report ?
INVESTABILITY RANKING
• This is a 0 - 10 score
BUILD ON BRIGHT SPOTS
(STRENGTHS)
• Focus on the innovation capabilities
and exponential attributes where
you are good at
ONE RIGHT THING AT A TIME
• When a companies work on too
many things progress doesn’t
happen. You also need to go on the
right thing now
Bright spots
bring energy,
bright spots are
motivating.
No successful
business
grows on it’s
weaknesses.
When people see
work is being done on
bright spots, they will
be more ready to fix
weak spots.
Bright Spots increase
Employee Engagement,
Employee
Engagement is Key
for Growth.
1
2
3
4
5

7. Partnerships
Processes
How to use this report ?
INVESTABILITY RANKING
• This is a 0 - 10 score
BUILD ON BRIGHT SPOTS
STRENGTHS
• Focus on the innovation capabilities
and exponential attributes where
you are good at
ONE RIGHT THING AT A TIME
• When companies work on too many
things progress doesn’t happen. You
also need to go on the right thing
now
Persistence
Purpose / Passion
Innovation
Over 90% companies go through these stages
sequentially. That means the right way to move
forward is almost always to simply to identify the
stage a company is at now and then work on what
will get them to the next stage
Companies become innovative step by step.
Each stage is dependent on the previous stages.

8. ABOUT THE
ASSESSMENTS
2 Scales:
10 years of research with
thousands of companies

9. Y-Axis
Exponential Quotient (ExQ)
measures the scalability of
your business model
X-Axis
Innovation Readiness (IR)
measures the ability to
execute innovation over
the time
Scalability
Able to execute
innovation

10. Exponential Quotient
(ExQ) measures the
scalability of your
business model
Innovation Readiness (IR)
measures the ability to
execute innovation
over the time
Origins
The Singularity University
Sample Size:
Over 10,000 assessments run
Validation
A study from Hult University
Top quartile ExQs outperform
the average 3 to 1

11. Companies with the highest ExQs (i.e.
those that possess the greatest number
of attributes and characteristics found in
Exponential Organizations (ExOs)
consistently outperform industry and
earnings projections as well as their
competitors.
Two years after ranking the top Fortune
100 companies by their exponential
quotient, the 10 companies with the
highest ExQs (i.e. the most flexible and
adaptable of the Fortune 100) out-
performed S&P projections by an
average of 3x over two years from 2015
to 2016.
An ExQ score can predict performance
Source: exoworks

12. Independent Variables Dependent Variable
Overall Exponential
Results
MTP 1. Massive Transformative Purpose
Internal Attributes
2. Staff on Demand (SoD)
3. Community & crowd
4. Algorithms
5. Leveraged Assets
6. Engagement
External Attributes
7. Interfaces
8. Dashboards
9. Experimentation
10. Autonomy
11. Social Technologies
Independent Variables Dependent Variable
Overall Exponential
Results
MTP 1. Massive Transformative Purpose
Internal Attributes
2. Staff on Demand (SoD)
3. Community & crowd
4. Algorithms
5. Leveraged Assets
6. Engagement
External Attributes
7. Interfaces
8. Dashboards
9. Experimentation
10. Autonomy
11. Social Technologies
Independent Variables Dependent Variable
Overall Exponential
Results
MTP 1. Massive Transformative Purpose
Internal Attributes
2. Staff on Demand (SoD)
3. Community & crowd
4. Algorithms
5. Leveraged Assets
6. Engagement
External Attributes
7. Interfaces
8. Dashboards
9. Experimentation
10. Autonomy
11. Social Technologies
How does ExQ measure scalability ?

13. General recommendations to become an
exponential company
1. MTP: inspiring a community to form around their massive vision; tracking and and retaining top talents;
orienting the organization towards external impact rather than internal politics; supporting a cooperative
nonpolitical culture; providing focus during rapid growth; and enabling agility and learning.
2. Staff on Demand: using of demand-based contractors vs. full time employees. Leverage external
talent for business functions.
3. Community and Crowd: engaging users, customers, partners and fans directly and allowing them
to engage between them, and engaging the community using digital tools.
4. Algorithms: substituting or complementing purely human decision making by machine learning.
5. Leveraged assets: flexibly access your assets rather than own them or lease them long term.
6. Engagement: converting the cloud into community members and leveraging their knowledge
digitally.
7. Interfaces: interact at arm's length both inside and outside the organization, decoupling the systems
that interact.
8. Dashboards: tracking critical growth drivers in real time.
9. Experimentation: learning about environment and market, maximizing the value capture and
measuring and tracking experiments.
10. Autonomy: operating in small, multidisciplinary, self-organizing teams with decision making power.
11. Social Technologies: deploying new collaboration and communication technology (live
conversations across organization) to increase the companies metabolism.

14. Exponential Quotient
(ExQ) measures the
scalability of your
business model
Innovation Readiness (IR)
measures the ability to
execute innovation
over the time
Origins
A collaboration between Solvay
University and 3 consulting
companies (Fast Bridge,
Benovate and Innovation
engineering)
Sample Size:
Over 500 assessments run
Validation
A 4 year study. The Innovation
readiness score predicts 81% of
innovation success and 38% of
business results

15. How does IR measure innovation ?
Independent Variables
Attitudes
1. Desire / Hunger
2. Philosophies
Entrepreneurial
orientation
3. Autonomy
4. Competitive
5. Creativity
6. Risk Taking
7. Proactivity
8. Structure
Strategy alignment 9. Strategy alignment
Processes
10. People processes
11. Organizational design
12. Customer focus
13. Co-creation
14. Ecosystem management
15. Speed / Results focus
16. System to select ideas
Learning orientation
17. Commitment to learning
18. Knowledge sharing
19. Open minded
Breakthrough
Innovation
Sustaining
Innovation
Innovation
Results
Overall
Business
Results
Dependent Variables

16. Does IR really measure innovation ?
Validity:
Scaled
measures / Self
declared
measures had a
.8 correlation
Reliability:
The reliability of all
scales was greater than
.80 most higher than .9
(typical
cut-off values .6-.7)
.8
38%
>.8
Of business
results
81%Of Innovation
Results

17. Innovation culture and capabilities
grow over time
The Basics
Strategy
Hunger
Philosophy
Learning
Orientation *
Operations
Speed
Proactivity
General systems
Customer focus
Entrepreneurial Orient.
Risk Taking
Ecosystem
Management
Structure
Creativity
Want it Do it Not scared to do more
Room to grow
Sustaining Innov.
Breakthrough Innov.
Companies are built over time ... change also happens over time.
Step 1: Identify the status of your company now
Step 2: Then focus on the single best next step
Step 3: Check for change
Step 4: If change move to the next steps

18. General recommendations to become an
innovative company
The Basics
Strategy alignment
Innovation training
Lean startup (learning training)
Innovation events
Training jobs to be done
Training business model innovation
Attend a startup weekend
Reward Proactivity
Tell them it is important and get
them to believe …
Operations
Moments of truth (deadlines)
Learn how to ask for ideas
Systems for speed (eg. Scrum)
Acceleration programs
Training + create sessions
Strategic outsourcing for ideas
Innovation sprints
Reward Innovation
Ask for ideas, push for speed
Build ideas and systems to test
Entrepreneurial Orient.
Ask for more ideas
Hackathons (Internal + External)
Ecosystem development
Celebrate risk taking
Bring in entrepreneurs
Reward Innopreneurship
Expect entrepreneurship, bring in
entrepreneurs / partners to shake things

19. General recommendation to become an
innovative company
PROCESSES
People Processes: Check for change
Organizational Design: If change move to the next steps
Customer Focus : Identify the status of your company now
Co-creation : Identify the status of your company now
Eco-system Management Identify the status of your company now
Speed/Results Focus: Identify the status of your company now
Systems to Select Ideas: Identify the status of your company now
LEARNING ORIENTATION: Identify the status of your company now
Commitment to Learning: Identify the status of your company now
Open-mindedness: Identify the status of your company now
Knowledge Sharing: Identify the status of your company now

20. Your target company
Results

21. Investability and Classification
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Not
invest
Invest
Your target company
investability
Your target company classification
• Take-off: Companies that are ready to be successful and exponentially profitable over
the time.

22. Take-off
Could be’sLaggards
Wanna be’s
Scalability Your target company
investability
Ability to execute
innovation
Challengers Exponential
Tech SavyLaggards
ExQ x IR chart

23. ExO and IR
10 charts

24. ExO
Charts 1-5

25. The concept of the Exponential Organization (ExO)
first arose at Singularity University, which Salim
Ismail co-founded in 2008 with noted futurist,
author, entrepreneur-turned-AI director at Google,
Ray Kurzweil.
An Exponential Organization is one whose impact
or output is disproportionately large -- at least 10
times larger -- compared to its peers because of
new organizational techniques that leverage
accelerating technologies. In other words, it grows
faster, bigger and cheaper than its competition
because it has a Massive Transformative Purpose
and scales as quickly as tech does.
Source: Exponential Organizations, Salim Ismail
WHAT ARE EXPONENTIAL
ORGANIZATIONS ?

26. ExOs use fewer physical facilities and fewer
employees than traditional organizations, as they
are grounded in information technology,
dematerializing physical structures and
transferring them to the digital universe on
demand. They learned to organize around an
information-based world.
To be considered an ExO, the organization must
have a Massive Transformer Purpose (MTP) in
addition to ten other attributes that reflect internal
and external mechanisms that are continually
being leveraged to achieve exponential growth,
we use the acronym SCALE (Staff on Demand,
Community and Crowd, Leverage Assets,
Algorithms and Engagement) and for external
attributes we use the acronym IDEAS (Interfaces,
Dashboards, Experimentation, Autonomy and
Social Technologies).Source: Exponential Organizations, Salim Ismail
THE ATTRIBUTES OF
EXPONENTIAL
ORGANIZATIONS

27. The Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) marks
the “why” behind the organization. The MTP goes
beyond a mission statement because it is on a far
larger, more aspirational scale and this means it
can revolutionize an industry and even a society.
An MTP should move a team’s focus from internal
affairs to positive external impacts, and should
provide a rallying cry that draws people in (while
filtering out the uninterested). The ideal MTP
should be so sweeping, aspirational, and definitive
that competitors are unable to craft an MTP
capable of surpassing it.
Examples
Google’s MTP: “Organizing all of the world’s
information”.
Tesla: “Accelerate the transition to sustainable
transportation.”
SpaceX: “Humans must become a multi-planetary
species”
DO YOU HAVE A MTP ?
CHART # 1: MASSIVE
TRANSFORMER PURPOSE
(MTP)

28. WHAT ARE YOUR INTERNAL
ATTRIBUTES THAT CHARACTERIZE
THE PARADIGMATIC EXO ?
CHART # 2: INTERNAL
ATTRIBUTES (SCALE)Staff on Demand (SoD): To act quickly and flexibly in a fast-
changing world, ExOs leverage external contractors.
Outsourcing as many tasks as possible rather than maintaining
a large full-time workforce allows companies to fill expertise
gaps and ensure a constant flow of fresh ideas.
Community & crowd: ExOs build and join communities, and
they crowdsource or crowdfund ideas to achieve rapid growth.
Algorithms: Companies such as Google, Airbnb and DHL are
based on algorithms, which allow for dynamic pricing, credit
card fraud detection, traffic optimization and much more. ExOs
use machine-learning technologies to refine these algorithms.
Leveraged Assets: Renting, sharing and leveraging assets such
as office facilities, machinery, copiers and even office plants
has long been standard. Now, companies are increasingly
outsourcing mission-critical assets. Apple, for example, uses its
manufacturing partner Foxconn’s factories for key product lines.
Not owning assets increases agility and allows quick scaling.
Engagement: User engagement techniques such as
gamification and incentive prizes help ExOs to engage markets
quickly.

29. WHAT ARE YOUR EXTERNAL
ATTRIBUTES THAT
CHARACTERIZE THE
PARADIGMATIC EXO ?
CHART # 3: EXTERNAL
ATTRIBUTES (IDEAS)
Interfaces: Interfaces are algorithms and automated
workflows that route the SCALE outputs as efficiently as
possible to the right people within the organization.
Dashboards: To track and monitor performance, all
members of an organization can access real-time metrics
via a dashboard.
Experimentation: ExOs use methods facilitating rapid
experimentation and process improvement through fast
feedback loops.
Autonomy: ExOs have flat hierarchies to promote agility
and accelerate learning and reaction times.
Social Technologies: Social technologies drive real-time,
zero-latency conversations across the organization.

30. DO YOU HAVE AN
EXPONENTIAL COMPANY ?
CHART # 4: EXQ SCORE
The ExOs scale is at a minimum 10x better than
their peers in the same space. For example, a
typical CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) company
like Johnson & Johnson or Proctor & Gamble takes
about 300 days to go from a new idea to a product
on a Walmart shelf. Quirky, a leading ExO, does
that same process — new idea to product on a
Walmart shelf — in just 29 days. And that’s in an
old industry, not some newfangled internet-
software-freemium-social-gaming play.

31. Chart #5: 4 out of 10 = cut-
off
Not all ExOs have the ten
attributes, however, there are a
minimum of four attributes to be
considered as ExO and the more
attributes the more expandable
they tend to be.
HOW MANY EXO
ATTRIBUTES DO YOU
HAVE ?

32. Innovation Readiness
Charts 6-10

33. The IR is based on work presented in
over 200 academic articles.
Research has linked significantly higher
levels of innovation and business
performance to business philosophies,
strategic alignment, business processes
and organizational learning.
Culture and process are the drivers of
innovation success.
Strategic Alignment
Attitudes Processes
Learning
Innovation
Performance
Firm
Performance
Source: http://tiny.cc/9uutsz
DO YOU REALLY WANT
TO INNOVATE ?

34. Innovation can (rarely) happen by accident,
but it usually doesn't. It can be a one-time
event or a systemic process.
Companies that invest in creating Innovation
systems are usually driven by a hunger to do
things better and differently. They are often
led by people that are intellectually curious
and have a desire to change the world.
Innovation can also just be in a company's
soul.
A low score here is a warning sign. Possible
solutions are to visualize the benefits of
Innovation and look for quick wins to build
confidence that your company can be
innovative but also work on a diversification
of the workforce in terms of
skills/experience...
DO YOU REALLY WANT
TO INNOVATE ?CHART # 6: ATTITUDE,
LEADERSHIP & CULTURE

35. Entrepreneurial Orientation represents the processes, practices
and decision-making which are embodied in the entrepreneurial
process, closely linked at the level of an innovative business setup.
We call it “Inno-Preneurship”.
A high measure of Entrepreneurial Orientation reflects the ability
of a company to quickly and effectively identify opportunities to
build its business in an innovative way, and to take advantage of
these business opportunities. This is an important complement to
the Innovation Readiness because it is not sufficient to be good at
innovating - a company needs to be run in an entrepreneurial way
to identify the business opportunities that are the triggers for
innovation, and in particular for developing concretely , on an
SMTM (Show Me The Money) way, new areas of business.
This chart shows how your company compares with all of the
companies with a similar profile to yours, with regard to
Entrepreneurial Orientation.
IS YOUR ORGANIZATION
BE DRIVEN BY AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL
MINDSET ?
CHART # 7:
ENTREPRENEURIAL
ORIENTATION

36. Innovation activities need to fit in the
context of the longer term direction of your
company.
A high score on this factor indicates that
you have a very clear vision of the future of
the business, you are continually planning
to develop the business, and you are
continually looking for ways to balance
activities across the different areas of your
company and, last but not least, innovation
is concretely handled on the field as a
strategic long term initiative. Board and C-
Level executives should clearly be involved
herewith.
ARE YOU ALIGNED FOR
SUCCESS ?
CHART # 8: STRATEGIC
ALIGNMENT

37. The habits OF INNOVATION SUCCESS are anchored in the DNA
of a company. Successful innovators almost always have the
right systems and processes in place to make innovation
happen.
The most important habits are :
• Organizational Design
• People Processes
• Systems to select ideas
• Customer Focus
• Co-Creation
• Eco-system management
• Speed/results focus
JUST TALKING ABOUT
INNOVATION IS NOT
ENOUGH...
CHART # 9: OPERATING
PROCEDURES
YOU NEED TO DEVELOP THE HABITS OF
INNOVATION SUCCESS

38. IS YOUR
ORGANIZATION
GETTING SMARTER ?
CHART # 10: LEARNING
ORIENTATION
Learning orientation refers to organization-
wide activity of creating and using knowledge
to enhance competitive advantage. This
includes obtaining and sharing information
about customer needs, market changes, and
competitor actions, as well as development of
new technologies to create new highly
competitive products that are by essence
superior to those of competitors.
Your learning orientation influences what kind
of information is gathered and how it is
interpreted, evaluated, and shared. The 3 key
components of learning orientation are
commitment to learning, open-mindedness
and intra-organizational knowledge sharing.

39. One page
Summary

40. KEY RESULTS
Investability Score
ExQ Scores
7.0

41. Notes and Recommendations
This section will be completed on a company by company basis

42. Annexes and
Definitions

43. How do ExO attributes contribute to
exponential results ?
1. MTP
A strong MTP is an ExO’s competitive edge. It is so inspirational, it generates a cultural movement around the ExO,
ultimately creating its own community, tribe and culture.
2. Staff on Demand
During the industrial revolution, having a large workforce allowed an organization to accomplish more. In today’s
information age, that same large workforce becomes an anchor that reduces maneuverability and slows you down. In
any information-enabled business a large internal staff seems increasingly unnecessary, counterproductive and
expensive. Outsourcing whenever you can make your company agile, flexible, fast-moving, and cost-effective.
Prerequisites: Interfaces to manage SoD and clear task specification.
3. Community & Crowd
Today, the internet has made it possible for organizations to build their community and crowd beyond borders who
share the same MTP. ExOs leverage community and crowd for many functions traditionally handled inside the
enterprise, including idea generation, funding, design, distribution, marketing and sales. This agility allows for rapid
implementation and exponential results.
Prerequisites: MTP, engagement, authentic and transparent leadership, low threshold to participate and P2P value
creation.
4. Algorithms
Remarkably, and often tragically, most companies today are still driven almost solely on the intuitive guesses of their
leaders who are just as likely to fall prey to a long list of self-delusions and cognitive biases.
Algorithms are thus a critical future component of every business. Almost all the business insights and decisions of
tomorrow will be data-driven. Given that they are much more objective, scalable, and flexible than human beings, they
are also critical for organizations committed to driving exponential growth.
Prerequisites: Machines or deep learning techniques and cultural acceptance.

44. How do ExO attributes contribute to
exponential results ?
5. Leveraged Assets
Renting, sharing or leveraging assets — as opposed to owning them — enables organizations to easily share and scale
assets not only locally, but also globally, and without boundaries.
As with Staff on Demand, ExOs retain their flexibility precisely by not owning assets, even in strategic areas. This
practice optimizes flexibility and allows the enterprise to scale incredibly quickly as it obviates the need for staff to
manage those assets.
Prerequisites: Abundance of easily available assets and interfaces.
6. Engagement
Connected individuals can now do what once only large centralized organizations could. Engagement creates network
effects and positive feedback loops with extraordinary reach.
The biggest impact of engagement techniques is on customers and the entire external ecosystem. However, these
techniques can also be used internally with employees to boost collaboration, innovation and loyalty.
Unless an ExO is able to optimize the engagement of its community and crowd, it will wither and fade.
Prerequisites: MTP and clear, fair and consistent rules without conflicts of interest.
7. Interfaces
Interfaces tend to become the most distinctive internal characteristics of a fully realized ExO.
There’s a good reason for this: at peak productivity, Interfaces empower the enterprise’s management of its SCALE
external attributes. Without such interfaces the ExO cannot scale, thus making them increasingly mission-critical.
Prerequisites: Standardized processes to enable automation, scalable externalities and algorithms (in most cases).
8. Dashboards
ExOs are growing at a rapid pace. To keep up with this pace, the organization needs to have visibility on all areas of
the business. Dashboards which enable visibility allow business, individuals and team assessments to be carried out
efficiently and much faster than ever before. Dashboards also allow you to see problems before they grow into big

45. How do ExO attributes contribute to
exponential results ?
Since tight control frameworks are critical to managing hyper growth, real-time dashboards used in conjunction with
defined “Objectives & Key Results” (OKRs) are key. OKRs are about focus, simplicity, short(er) feedback cycles, and
openness. As a result, insights and improvements are easier to see and implement.
Prerequisites: Real-time metrics tracked, gathered and analyzed, OKRs implemented, and cultural acceptance by
employees.
9. Experimentation
Corporate organization charts are traditionally structured to withstand risk and change. However, in today’s world, the
biggest risk is not taking any risk. The modern rule of competition is “whoever learns fastest, wins.”
Experimentation is effectively “scalable learning”. This makes a culture of continuous experimentation even more
important. Large numbers of bottom-up ideas, properly filtered, always trump top-down thinking, no matter the
industry or organization.
Prerequisites: Measurement and tracking of experiments, and cultural acceptance (failure = experience).
10. Autonomy
Charles Darwin discovered an interesting aspect about evolution. He found that the fastest progression of evolution did
not happen when huge populations were exposed to stressful conditions. In fact, those which evolved the fastest under
stressful conditions were small groups of species isolated from the main population. By the same token, small,
independent and interdisciplinary teams are critical to future organizations, especially at the edges.
Prerequisites: MTP (as a gravity well), self-starting employees, and dashboards.
11. Social Technologies
Social Technologies are comprised of seven key elements: Social Objects, Activity Streams, Task Management, File
Sharing, Telepresence, Virtual Worlds and Emotional Sensing. When implemented, these elements create transparency
and connectedness and, most importantly, lower an organization’s information latency.
The entire social paradigm presents several critical implications for ExOs. Organizational intimacy is increased, decision
latency is reduced, knowledge improves and is more widely spread, and serendipity increases. In short, social
technologies enable the real-time enterprise.

46. Innovation Readiness
19 measures in 5
areasAttitudes
1. Desire / Hunger
2. Philosophies
Entrepreneurial
orientation
3. Autonomy
4. Competitive
5. Creativity
6. Risk Taking
7. Proactivity
8. Structure
Strategy alignment 9. Strategy alignment
Processes
10. People processes
11. Organizational design
12. Customer focus
13. Co-creation
14. Ecosystem management
15. Speed / Results focus
16. System to select ideas
Learning orientation
17. Commitment to learning
18. Knowledge sharing
19. Open minded

47. Attitudes
• 1. Desire / Hunger
• 2. Philosophies

48. Entrepreneurial Orientation
3. Autonomy
4. Competitive
5. Creativity
6. Risk Taking
7. Proactivity
8. Structure

49. Strategy alignment
9. Strategic alignment

50. Processes
• 10. People processes
• 11. Organizational design
• 12. Customer focus
• 13. Co-creation
• 14. Ecosystem management
• 15. Speed / Results focus
• 16. System to select ideas

51. Learning Orientation
• 17. Commitment to learning
• 18. Knowledge sharing
• 19. Open minded

53. How do IR attributes contribute to
innovation results
1. BASICS
1.1. Desire/Hunger: Companies that invest in creating Innovation systems are usually driven by a hunger to
do things better and differently. They are often led by people that are intellectually curious and have a desire
to change the world.
1.2. Philosophies: Every company has a soul and ways of acting. The organizational philosophies determine
what is important in a company. Philosophies define why things are done and the ways things should be
done. Some companies by nature are more philosophically inclined to be interested in innovation. A low score
here is a warning sign just like in the area of Desire/Hunger. Possible solutions are to visualize the benefits of
innovation and to also look for quick wins to build confidence that your company can be innovative.
2. STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Strategic alignment is the key link between attitudes and actions. Strategically aligned companies are
walking the talk of innovation. Innovation activities need to fit into the context of the long term direction of
your company and be clearly linked with strategic validated/communicated tracks. Clear structures, budgets
and mandates are also needed to support operationalization of the strategy.
Strategic alignment is:
• Our innovation strategy is clearly communicated so that everyone knows the targets for improvement.
• My organization strategically allocates specific resources (money, staff, materials and space) for innovation
to make it easier for potential innovators.
• There is commitment and support for innovation from top management.

54. How do IR attributes contribute to
innovation results
3. PROCESSES
3.1. People Processes: In every organization people are what drive innovation. The assessment doesn't focus
on how people are recruited, but rather how they are managed to deliver innovative results. A new line of
research on group dynamics has shown that the key things to get right are to make sure:
• People feel valued
• When people work together, effort is taken to encourage/foster diversity
• People are allowed to voice their own opinions
• Managers act more as facilitators and show leadership
• And the decision procedures are coordinated & objective
If you have a low score on this dimension, try reading The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki for ideas
on getting people working together.
3.2. Organizational Design: In the area of Innovation and almost every other area of business what is
measured and rewarded happens. A first area of good organizational designs for innovation includes:
encouragement to try new ideas, acceptance of smart failures and rewards for efforts and good tries. (Note:
it is important not to reward just success and it is important that rewards are for individual and team effort.)
A second area of good organization design focuses on removing barriers and increasing work flexibility. If
you score low in this area, you might try to read a good book on organizational behavior that talks about how
to reward performance.(The Jericho Principle from Ralf Welborne is a good example...). The right rewards are
more than money alone.
3.3. Customer Focus: Identify All businesses rely on their customers for their revenue and profitability - and
innovation must take account of customer needs and preferences. A high score indicates that your company
has very good knowledge about customer expectations and needs, that you are very good at getting
customer feedback, and that you really know the types of innovation that your customers will accept or
reject. A good customer focus also includes a flexible view of who the customer is. Is the customer who uses
my product, or who pays my bills? A good book could be the Gift of Marcel Mauss.

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3.4. Co-creation : It is an active, creative and social process based on collaboration between producers and
users, which is initiated by the firm to generate value for customers. It is about working together with the
people and organizations that interact with your company to identify new needs and create customer
experiences. Co-creation moves from teaching the customer to learning from each other. It causes us to
leverage our individual and shared experiences together, creating something that we could not have
produced separately. One place a lot of companies fail is with a NIH (Not Invented Here). If you have an
open view on co-creation you will be ready to select the best ideas and solutions regardless of their source. A
high score indicates you are doing well working with partners. A low score means you are probably not
developing the best products and related ecosystems you could and that your cycle to bring a new
product/service on the market is probably longer than your competitors' cycle.
3.5. Eco-system Management Greatness on your part is not enough. In today's connected world, there is no
such thing as an autonomous innovator. You are an actor within a broader innovation ecosystem. Success in
a connected world requires that you manage your interactions with your business environment. Instead of
thinking "If we build it, will people buy it?" you need to think "If we build it, who will we need to work with to
make sure our customers can buy it?" Your score measures how actively you are working to understand and
leverage your business environment for innovation success. (Want to know more? Read The Wide Lens by
Ron Adner.)
3.6. Speed/Results Focus: Rarely is the first product or idea the right one. Successful innovators usually need
to be good at quick development, quick testing and quick decisions. Equally important, companies need to
ensure they are not testing to test, but testing to deliver business results. Speed without a results focus is a
quick way to waste money. SMTM (Show Me The Money …) focus needs to always be present.
3.7. Systems to Select Ideas: A lot of research has shown the biggest difference between companies
successful at innovation and new product introduction is not their ability to create new ideas, but their ability
to quickly kill bad ones (and only the bad ones). Your score reflects your use of systematic methods to test
ideas early and objectively evaluate the quality of your ideas and their fit with your corporate context.

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When evaluating ideas try to think in terms of:
• Overt Benefit - What’s in it for the customer and for the company? And is the benefit overtly clear and well
balanced?
• Real Reason to Believe - Why should customer believe you will deliver on the promise made above?
• Dramatic Difference - How revolutionary and new-to-the-world is your benefit/reason to believe.
Want to know more? Read Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately
Double Your Business Success Rate by Doug Hall.
Note: even if your product is great, you also need to make sure it fits in your business lifecycle (e.g. If you're
in a declining commodity market, you probably need to be thinking more in terms of
process/experience/service innovation rather than disruptive product Innovation) more details hereon see
the CIBAM ® Model (Cunjunctural Innovation to Business Alignment Model) By P.Crasson.

57. How do IR attributes contribute to
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Learning and entrepreneurial orientation are analyzed in more detailed because these 2 variables alone have
been shown to explain up to 50% of a company's innovation results.
4. LEARNING ORIENTATION
4.1. Commitment to Learning: The committed organization considers learning as an important investment
that is crucial for survival. The more an organization values learning, the more likely it is that learning will
occur. Most importantly, commitment to learning is associated with a long-term strategic orientation. Short-
term investments will yield long-term gains. For example, managers in committed organizations expect
employees to use company time to pursue knowledge outside the immediate scope of their work. If an
organization does not encourage the development of knowledge, employees will not be motivated to pursue
learning activities.
4.2. Open-mindedness: It is the willingness to critically evaluate the organization’s operational routine and to
accept new ideas. Firms must cope with rapidly changing technology and turbulent markets. The rate of
knowledge obsolescence is high in most sectors. Even so, lessons learned in the past may still be instructive
if the organization has the open-mindedness to question them. It may be just as important to unlearn old
ways as it is to renew or update the knowledge base. Change management and an outstanding related
communication is a key factor here for success.
4.3. Knowledge Sharing: It refers to collective beliefs or behavioral routines related to the spread of learning
among different units within an organization. It keeps alive the knowledge and information gathered from
various sources and serves as a reference for future action. For example, the marketing department’s
experience with customers may be valuable to the R&D unit in developing products or services to fit
customer needs. Learning in an organization results from an accumulation of individual learning. Because of
employee turnover and transfer, intra-organizational knowledge sharing is necessary to prevent the loss of
information. Even if an organization is committed to learning and has a shared vision, learning will be limited
without the accumulation of knowledge. Some scholars argue that learning does not really occur unless an
organization has an effective and efficient system for sharing and re-examining information. Intra-
organizational knowledge sharing does not simply refer to obtaining information from various sources. It

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5. ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION
5.1. Autonomy: Research shows that allowing staff to have a level of autonomy in their decision-making
generally creates an environment that better supports entrepreneurial activities. A high score indicates that
your business supports and encourages individuals and/or teams to identify the best business opportunities
and take advantage of them without constantly referring to their supervisors.
5.2. Competitiveness: Identify Innovative company managers are very aware of the intensity of competition
in their geographical area. A high score suggests that your business typically adopts a very competitive
"undo-the-competitors" approach that is very aggressive and intense, and that your management team
avoids direct contact with competing businesses.
5.3. Creativity : This is all about the degree to which your business operates in an innovative manner. A high
score indicates that your management team puts a strong emphasis on developing and marketing new
products and services based on innovation; that you favor experimentation and original approaches to
problem solving; that you prefer to develop your own ways for developing and delivering new products and
services; that your company has introduced a very large number of new lines of products or services over the
last five years and that these changes have often been quite dramatic.
5.4. Risk-taking: Innovative company managers are willing to take risks to innovate, but also recognize the
need to manage risk in an intelligent way. A high score suggests that your business prefers to take on high-
risk projects (that offer the chance of a very high return); that your team believes that you need to introduce
"big" and significant innovations to achieve your business objectives; that you are quick to spend money on
potential solutions if you think that problems are holding you back; and that you are quick to seize
opportunities in a bold and aggressive manner if you think they will give a good return.
5.5. Proactiveness: Taking the initiative was identified by many company leaders & managers as essential for
innovation and entrepreneurial activities. A high score indicates that your business has a strong tendency to
be ahead of competitors in producing novel ideas, products or services, and that competitors typically follow
(copy) what you do.