There are a lot of reasons why innovation fails. One of which is the focus on minimizing risk; many corporates function with an immune system that focuses on minimizing risk, which is essentially designed to kill variability. Instead, we encourage our clients to work and think with the concept of maximum liability and risk, and de-risking innovations and assumptions, fast and cost-effectively, through experimentation, validation, and rigorous iteration. Whether it’s the (in)validation of an assumption, concept, or business model, your decisions should be based on real-time data, gathered today, and not on a Kantar report.
Additionally, innovation often fails due to a lack of flexibility; sticking to an idea and not being able to pivot often has a costly and inefficient outcome. Think big, start small, and learn fast. Use experiments to validate the most critical assumptions of your proposition.
Thirdly, the lack of real customer and behavioral insights creates wrong assumptions about your market, leading to low adoption and ultimately the failure of your innovation. Imagine for example that you’re launching a new preventive health solution to market based without having deep insights into what drives patient behavior chances are that you will imagine a future state patient journey that will not drive adoption.