The key to successful innovation is eliminating the barriers of incumbency of legacy and innovating at scale, and all companies except those which are born digital have issues meeting these two objectives.
Large companies, especially those based on traditional business models, have significant issues with legacy technologies, people and culture. While technology and cost barriers to innovation can increasingly be addressed via innovative partnership models and low-cost agile solutions, the key challenge is the middle management permafrost that has no incentive to innovate and is playing the odds on whether they can afford to retire before they become obsolete.
Smaller companies which are based on traditional business models have even more serious challenges with sustainability in the digital age, but they can migrate to modern technologies and business models easier due to relative lack of technical debt and legacy mindsets. The challenge for these companies is related to strategic clarity and access to appropriate skill sets to be able to manage innovation meaningfully and to drive change across complex value chains.
Read the full transcript of the interview to Edward Wilson-Smythe, Principal at Avasant, and Jan Beránek, CEO at Usertech joined Frank Casale, Founder at IRPA AI, discussing key factors on why companies struggle with innovation, why middle management is delaying innovation for personal reasons, how innovation must be decentralized in order to be successful, what key challenge businesses face in the wake of digital disruption and so much more in this exclusive interview.
