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Also See:
New Organizational Model For Global Success
6 Signs Of A Well-Run I.T. Shop
By Ellen Pearlman
Strategic Thinkers:
George Westerman and Martin Curley
Credentials:
Westerman is a research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research and the co-author of IT Risk: Turning Business Threats Into Competitive Advantage; Curley is Senior Principal Engineer and Global Director of IT Innovation at Intel, co-director of the Innovation Value Institute and adjunct professor at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
Big Idea:
IT can have the ability and credibility to drive their company's innovation efforts
Article: "Building IT-Enabled Innovation Capabilities at Intel" published by MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2008, (you must register to access the article)
Innovation is at the core of many corporate strategies. A Boston Consulting Group survey of more than 2,000 senior executives in 2007 found that two-thirds said innovation was a top-three priority. But less than half of those surveyed were satisfied with the results of their innovation investments.
What can IT do to help ensure that innovation flourishes and leads to competitive advantage? At Intel it meant that IT took both a leadership role in creating an atmosphere for innovation to flourish and provided the tools and metrics for enabling it. For executing well on this challenging assignment, IT received internal and external recognition as well as a return on investment of more than 350 percent for its innovation projects. How did they do it?
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A recent article by Intel's Global Director of IT Innovation, Martin Curley, and MIT research scientist George Westerman in the MIS Quarterly Executive sheds lights on how Intel went about it. But before thinking you can just apply their methods to your own organization, one caveat is in order: Be sure your IT house is in order and you are seen as "effective contributors to organizational performance" before trying to lead an innovation initiative, the authors say. Intel's IT function was viewed as a poor performer in the 1990s and had to transform itself before it could embark on its innovation initiatives and get the support it needed from the business.
In 2003, as part of its mission to provide strategic IT leadership and services, IT staffer Martin Curly and one of his team members proposed that CIO Doug Busch establish a team to develop innovation solutions and capabilities. The strategic goals were:
- To create new solutions that would improve Intel's internal efficiency and effectiveness.
- To deliver key applications that would create demand for new Intel platforms.
- To conduct research and create thought leadership that would influence and inspire key customers.
- To develop innovation-enabling capabilities.
Since Intel was in the process of changing direction from a semiconductor component company to a platform company, seeding innovation was a priority. And so, the IT proposal was accepted and the IT Innovation Group (ITI) was formed 2003. Not only was ITI given the go ahead, it was also asked to be the catalyst for worldwide IT innovation. Early on the IT leaders realized that a small, centralized group of expert IT innovators could not have the success that a larger team effort could realize. And they also knew that Intel's platform strategy would require external customers and partners to take part in building innovation onto Intel's platform. So stage one of their effort focused on creating the capability at Intel for innovation and stage two focused on helping others in the company innovate for themselves-a process they dubbed "diffusing" innovation.
ITI created an Innovation Delivery team to build solutions and to ensure that innovations were adopted. One success of the team was an e-learning solution to help PC novices learn how to use the PCs effectively. Over 250,000 copes of this solution, in more than 15 languages, have been distributed worldwide by OEMs.
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Each major IT unit at Intel has an innovation champion responsible for driving innovation goals. ITI also had to partner with other groups, such as Intel's Solutions Marketing Group, who sponsored and funded some of the IT innovation activities and research. ITI also created a global network of 12 Innovation Centers and a Virtual Innovation Center to help drive Intel's innovation initiatives. These centers provide a showcase for IT solutions and practices and a place to hold innovation-related training and seminars. About half of the funding for the Innovation Centers came from business groups within Intel. Co-funding of these projects resulted in "shared ownership of success and shared risk/reward for business and IT stakeholders," the authors say.
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