A Practical Solution for Medium Sized Companies to Grow
The Fortune 1,000 work innovation process like mad. Many have fine-tuned frameworks with a high level of sophistication. That lowers risk. However, elaborate innovation frameworks slow things down. This mild paralysis is an opening for small and medium sized companies. They can grow by beating bigger players to the punch.
CINO Roles:
- Identify Threats and Opportunities
- Develop a Culture of Innovation
- Create and Lead Innovation Teams & Projets
- Facilitate Idea Generation and Rapid Prototyping
- Clse the Chasm Between Innovators and the rest of the company
You Must Have New Innovation In Order to Drive Top Line Growth
Your organization, just like every other organization out there, has to deliver new innovation and not just simply incremental innovation, but rather truly impactful innovation that’s capable of moving the needle.
Moreover, just like your competition, your organization really has to be able to do this over and over again, not stopping, if it is to get ahead and become the driving force in its markets. But if your organization is like many, it simply is not in a position to hire a full time Chief Innovation Officer, particularly one having the pedigree needed to drive such efforts successfully.
Real expertise is expensive and many second stage companies get sticker shock when faced with hiring expertise. CEO’s and founders of these companies are used to the high performance/low pay model they got used to in the first phase of growth.
Lack of innovation expertise is a major reason companies struggle to grow. A Fractional CINO addresses these missing skill sets:
CINO Innovation Skills:
- Process and Innovation Project Management Skills — including: team building, culture leadership, innovation project roadmapping, and more. If you’re mid-sized, paying attention to growing these skills helps you grow.
- Market Research — qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic research are rarely done in mid-sized organizations. In general “insight development” (finding opportunities to grow) is something that should not be purely intuitive. Doing even basic market research takes training and experience.
- Facilitation — who conducts strategy, visioning, ideation, and solution development meetings? It’s almost impossible for an insider, with other duties and biases, to do this well.
- Prototyping — including: design, graphic arts, and concept writing are skills that go beyond engineering. New ideas need to integrate product development with marketing and sales as well.
- Product Development — taking good ideas and fine tuning, branding, and packaging, all require informed creativity, and, hands-on, knowledge and experience.
- Digital Technology and Marketing — It’s hard to emphasize what a big innovation opportunity (or a huge pitfall) the plethora of new digital tech is for a second stage company.
Fractional Trend
It’s the 80/20 rule. Hiring a Fractional CINO gets you most of the pricey benefits of having innovation process experience. Don’t be put off by the new jargon, a strategic part timer isn’t a new concept, but it is an emerging trend.
Look at what GigX is doing, or Toptal in the software/financial space. There are many firms and consultants offering CxO fractional services. The Edward Lowe Foundation provides strategic growth assistance as part of their many and varied programs for second stage companies. The win for the fractional person is straightforward — it’s flexible, part time, interesting, well paid, work.
Hire a Fractional Chief Innovation Officer
A Fractional Chief Innovation Officer is a practical, high value solution. A part time strategic asset gets your organization focused on the most essential, growth oriented, innovation projects.
A Fractional Chief Innovation Officer operating on a part-time basis one or two days per week provides a more budget-friendly option with the same impact. A fractional CINO will establish and provide structure around the company’s innovation function and advance the correct innovation agenda.
Non-profits need CINO skills too.