Steven Soares

To create an innovative company you need to create an entrepreneurial culture, one that embraces new technology into its company’s activities as well as products and services. In essence the company not only has to be able to adapt quickly to change, but most importantly be willing to withstand a certain amount of product setbacks on its way to being a success. The trick is to manage small, incremental innovations within the existing product line.

The team members in your organization that will fulfill the essential entrepreneurial roles are people who are going to be product champions. These are people who think of the new ideas and then advocate for the change. You will also need sponsors who will take on ownership of the product and understand its potential value to the organization. Lastly, you will need someone who will orchestrate the funding for the project. This is typically someone in upper management, a stakeholder, or you the owner and main stakeholder of your small business that believes in the innovation.

An approach of creating innovation within organizations is to have smaller multifunctional teams with significant autonomy dedicated to these projects. What is important in having smaller teams, is keeping them in the know of all communications. Everyone needs to be a part of this process, and to believe they are all part of the innovation. Once the new product is ready for deployment, everyone will be energized about its launch, because you have an innovative entrepreneurial culture.