How to Scale Innovation

One of the main challenges that we aim to tackle in innovation is how to scale its impact. In the spring I had the pleasure of speaking with SAP’s Chief Innovation Officer, Maxwell Wessel, about scaling innovation.

According to Wessel, there are two things required to scale innovation at SAP:

1. A portfolio of small investments:

“ We need to work on a bunch of projects, with the hope that a handful of them will become those that scale exponentially.”

2. An engine of grassroots participation:

“We need to be able to pick from thousands of ideas. We need all SAP employees and the members of our ecosystem to engage to help us come up with the great ideas.”

All companies must focus and invest in long-term indicators of success to scale innovation.

“Too often we think of revenue metrics or early big-name customer wins. When the focus really needs to be what the customer wants, what creates value, and how we demonstrate on an ongoing basis that we are delivering that.”

At SAP, from early on in the innovation process, the focus is on the adoption, use, and other long-term indicators of success.

“If we invest there we will benefit from it. And I think the exact same thing comes to bear for all of our customers”.

Do you agree? Please share in a comment below how you are scaling innovation for growth.