Presentation given by Larry Schmitt at the Chief Innovation Officer Summit held December 3-4, 2014 in New York City.

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Pushing Boundaries
Pursuing strategic white space opportunities

2. The New Strategic Imperative
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The Challenges
Maintain excellence in existing business
Prepare for possible disruption
Change the company culture
Create new businesses in new areas
Sustaining –Meat Industry
Strategic –Medical Industry

3. In aHarvard Business Reviewarticle, Maletzand Nohriadescribe white space as an area within a company where the existing corporate culture does not apply.
Mark Johnson in Seizing the Whitespacemakes the case for white spacewithin the business unit, white space between business units, and white space beyond existing customers and products.
Adam HartunginCreate Marketplace Disruption: How to Stay Ahead of the Competitionsaid “Companies use the white space to evolve new formulae for business success free from the existing Defend and Extend culture.”
Chris Trimble and Vijay GovindarajaninBeyond the Idea: How to Execute Innovation in Any Organizationdescribe a Model-C for running an innovation initiative outside the company’s existing “performance engine”.
White Space Definitions
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2001
2010
2008
2013

4. What is a Whitespace?
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“A white space is something that fits our core missionbut doesn't fit our core business.”
The Tether Metaphor
Core
Strategic
White SpaceHow far can you ‘fly’?

5. You NEED to Pursue Whitespace Opportunities
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Doctor-centric -> Patient-centric
Healthcare
Transportation
Metal & Plastic -> Electronic & Aware
Manufacturing
Manual & Mass -> Connected & Custom
Retail
Physical & Static -> Mobile & Interactive

6. The Boundary Zone –Pushing the Boundary
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Disruptive
Incremental
Operational
Transformational
Newness to the World
Newness to the Company
Speculative
Strategic
Sustaining
The new whitespace

7. It’s Just not Us
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The two most anti-innovative words that can be uttered –‘prove it’
Roger Martin
Data, information, facts and analysis are not the answer
Intangible and unarticulated ‘feelings’ will make or break a strategic opportunity

8. Building a White Space Capability
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Ambidextrous
Behavior
Learning & Partnering
Scaled Rounds
Experimental Mindset
Protected
Teams & Projects
Incubation
Space & TimeCultureStructure

9. The Culture Side
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Leadership
People & Team Competency

10. The Structure Side
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Organization
Funding Process

11. A Cautionary Story
•Result
–Terminated project
•What Happened
–Identified opportunity
–Technical challenges, large R&D investment
–Business Unit killed project – couldn’t ‘make it work’
•Patterns
–Time & $ incompatibility between core R&D & BU
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Diesel Particulate Filters

12. Organization
• Success Factors
– Independent, protected group
– Transactional authority
– Effective networking &
influence
• Failure Modes
– ‘Siloing’ of group
– Coping with ‘pushback’
–Wrong mix of skills
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“Be an extremely good communicator.
Be objective and clear about where
the project is and where it is going.
Know how to network and remember,
things will get political.”
Operational
Transformational

13. Funding
•Success Factors
–Protected & scaled funding
–A start-up period
–Balanced technical & commercial funding
•Failure Modes
–A priori commitment
–Scale too soon or late
–NPV evaluation
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“Think about committing resources as if you are a small business.”

14. Process
• Success Factors
– The ‘right’ number of
projects
– Move fast, know when
to stop
– Incubation ‘Space’
• Failure Modes
– Lack of transparency
– No decision criteria
– Incompatible timescales
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“There is a mechanism in place to
transfer the project to a business but
you can't transfer excitement about
something or the experience of being
involved from the beginning.”

15. Pushing Your Strategic Boundary
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Organization
Funding Process
Leadership
People
& Teams
Competencies

16. Systems Support a Strategic Innovation Culture
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Find the People
Create a System
Those who should and could
pursue strategic white space
opportunities
Support them with a system
that creates a culture of
strategic innovation

17. Connect with Us
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Copyright © 2014 The Inovo Group LLC
Larry SchmittThe Inovo Group, LLC
213 South Ashley St., Suite 300Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
P: +1 (734) 604-3887
E: lschmitt@TheInovoGroup.com
Call us at 1-888-464-6686
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