I am in Denver today and tomorrow for the Chief Innovation Officer conference, and I’m delighted to be meeting and mentoring those leading their company’s innovation efforts. I’m partnering with BMG’s CEO David Silverstein and Dr. Phil Samuel for this second CIO event, and attendees come from companies like Levi Strauss, GE Energy, United Healthcare,Circuit City and Versatech to name just a few. These innovation leaders have a challenging job and come with a lot of questions about how to deliver sustainable, innovation-driven growth. As someone who has been in their shoes, I can relate to these challenges, and I am looking forward to helping them build a roadmap to create a custom strategy that will achieve their goals. 

Not surprisingly, a growing number of companies all over the world adding CIOs at very high levels within their leadership ranks:

The list continues to grow. I’ve helped many of my corporate clients across different industries (including some on this list) to restructure their organizations to stimulate innovation by appointing these uniquely-skilled leaders to champion their innovation efforts.  Several will have new innovation leaders within the next few months.
These CIOs are role models for leadership qualities and typically have the following characteristics that enable them to be successful in their roles:

•     Ability to be successful in a complex matrix environment
•     Ability to influence supervisors, peers, and subordinates in order to drive Innovation initiatives
•     High cognitive power skills
•     Strong Business Acumen Sound judgment
•     Strategic, conceptual orientation
•     High energy, flexibility, motivational and empowerment skills
•     Ability to select, retain, and delegate to an solid deputy group
•     Requires change management skills, conflict resolution skills and the ability to promote, motivate and effect positive changes for the total organization
•     Ability to inspire and motivate teams to achieve superior results

A significant amount of their time is spent stewarding innovation efforts and building capabilities across business units, functions and geographies.  They are tasked with finding creative ways to balance building tomorrow while delivering results today.  Their efforts are personally stimulating yet challenging at times.  That is why a lot of these C-suite leaders are experimenting with new metrics that go beyond financial measures. They are not satisfied with lagging metrics and are finding creative ways to demonstrate their accomplishments by looking at a simple portfolio of input and output metrics such as innovation success rates for products and services, outside idea sourcing, return on investment metrics, capability measures, and even sources of additional revenue. The area of metrics is expanding rapidly to meet the evolving needs of these C-suite leaders.  

As you can see, I have a lot of passion in these areas of innovation and an excited to share about my own rewarding experience as a CIO, championing innovation at Kimberly-Clark, and what I am seeing as a thought leader across industries with my clients today.

Many companies are finding it difficult to sustain growth because they are dependant on incremental innovations, which don’t often provide the level of growth expected in today’s marketplace. So it was very encouraging to me to take part in the Consumer Goods Technology Growth and Innovation forum in Miami this week. I spent time talking with and listening to leaders and attendees from around the world about their efforts to revitalize their innovation strategies.These innovation leaders shared retrospectives on their innovation journey—what they have done, lessons learned and future approaches. Many CPG companies facing similar growth challenges are looking for innovative solutions to drive top-line growth. That transformation needs to take them from simply pushing technologies to market, toward building brand loyalty by delivering meaningfully differentiated consumer benefits.  

Outsourcing has definitely seen an evolution process over the past decade, and new trends are shaping the way global companies succeed in the future. According to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, U.S. companies spent $4.2 trillion on outsourcing in 2006, up from $3.1 trillion in 2003. But looking back at their outsourcing experiences, many of those companies will tell you that the savings weren’t as great as they had hoped.

When PricewaterhouseCoopers surveyed 300 global companies, 66 percent said they will continue to outsource even though they did not see expected benefits. In other words, not many are eager to bring the work back in house. But how can they be more strategic about the way they outsource? The answer may be found in four of the biggest trends in outsourcing today. These four show how the most experienced players are not only succeeding today, but positioning themselves for the future.

1. Outsourcing beyond India and China.

Now that other contenders are entering the outsourcing arena, companies are beginning to see advantages in Russia, the Philippines, Eastern Europe and Viet Nam. Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest outsourcing company, now has 5,000 employees in Latin America and recently added a facility in Mexico to accommodate an increasing number of American companies who want their outsourcing companies working in the same time zone as their internal corporate employees.

2. Outsourcing knowledge-based work.

Beyond billing and payroll, more companies are outsourcing their core business processes that are traditionally performed in house. By outsourcing product development teams, for instance, companies can do more custom design work for their customers at a lower cost.

3. Outsourcing as a partnership

Many companies today don’t merely hand off their work to strangers; they develop strategic relationships with their providers. To do this, corporate leaders need to move from a mostly cost-driven customer-supplier model toward a full-fledged partnership. This must include communicating regularly and dedicating managers and time to the relationship so that companies can better leverage and maximize the value of their provider’s capabilities.

4. Selective outsourcing

Smart companies are discovering that it is much easier and more beneficial to move from a multitude of vendors and providers to a few. Though there is not a movement toward a one-provider-does-all model, having a handful of key global business partners gives companies a more streamlined and efficient way to manage the business. In order to facilitate consistency, companies are using global standardized processes like management tools and process flow.

As outsourcing evolves and matures, these trends show us how companies are becoming more strategic in the way they work together with their partners outside the U.S. And that’s a trend that makes a lot of sense.

This has been an exciting week for us at Innovationedge, as we’ve welcomed two new members to our team. I won’t write here about their long list of impressive work, but I encourage you to click on these links to Jeff Lindsay and Roy Luebke to read more about their proven track records and abilities to lead companies in creating sustainable capabilities and a pipeline of disruptive solutions.  

Both Jeff and Roy are inventors and change agents who bring large networks of prestigious connections to Innovationedge.  Their combined breadth of experience brings a wealth of knowledge to our team. With the addition of these members we’ll be able to offer a wider portfolio of offerings to help clients define their strategy, develop capabilities, design a winning organizational structure and deliver breakthrough innovations.  

Though they are from two different backgrounds and walks of life, Jeff and Roy have something in common that is very important to me: They are both fearless champions of innovation.  Both are perpetual learners and creative, out-of-the-box thinkers who are passionate about what they do. Their creative energy pumps us up and creates an exciting atmosphere, and I am fortunate to have them on our team.

Welcome to my blog. This is where you get to interact with me and others about innovation. I’ll share my thoughts on everything from disruptive technologies and strategic partnerships to the latest innovative solutions and some cool opportunities to stretch your imagination. I also encourage you to comment on innovation practices at your company and share your insights with others.

As for the fine print, guidelines for posting here include the standard warnings about keeping your comments appropriate and on-topic. That is, if you hope to see your submissions published. I’ll keep a searchable archive of past articles and links. Let’s get posting.