The Missing Link Between Strategy and Innovation

To drive growth, corporate innovation needs to connect to a clear set of strategic priorities and play to the company’s strengths.

March 18, 2024

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In too many companies, an innovation team is allowed to pursue its own agenda and imagine itself to be a separate island from the rest of the company. The results are always disappointing: a lot of creative ideas, but a failure to deliver meaningful growth. The root problem is the disconnect between strategy and innovation. To succeed, corporate innovation needs to be bounded by a clear set of strategic priorities that matter to the business. And it needs to play to the strengths of the firm — whether data, customer relationships, or supply chains — that will enable it to outcompete others attempting the same idea. The author offers five steps to help embed strategy into the innovation process.

Established companies know they must innovate to find growth in the digital era. So, in recent years, large companies have set up innovation labs, accelerators, hackathons, and open innovation programs to look beyond their core, pursue disruptive ideas, iterate, and experiment.

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David L. Rogers is faculty at Columbia Business School and author of five books. His international bestseller, The Digital Transformation Playbook, was the first book on digital transformation and put the topic on the map. His latest is The Digital Transformation Roadmap. Rogers helps companies unlock growth, advising Microsoft, Google, Citibank, Mastercard, Unilever, Merck, Toyota, GE, Cartier, and others. Subscribe to his newsletter at davidrogers.digital/subscribe.