Building Trust in Innovation Practices
Other areas to consider extension into may include non-traditionals( e. g. Amazon, Microsoft) or startups( e. g. Anduril, Palantir, and Epirus). These extensions prompt new kinds of partnerships, sometimes driving into mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs. These entities often bring a sense of urgency, agility, and flexibility.
Startups are frequently a good choice of extension. Contrasted with the too-big-to-fail mentality of the primes, startups thrive in risk. The desire to survive and succeed drives many startups to take on high-risk, high-reward ideas, tackle the problems traditionally thought too difficult, expensive, or impossible, and sometimes accept more one-sided business relationships. Large prime corporations have already and successfully joined the world of venture capital investments. These venture capital arms can be a valuable interface, with leaders that can help bridge sometimes incompatible personalities. The question for most will be in the diversity of investments, from the more mature and lower risk to nascent startups.
There are also the intrapreneur and“ internal startup” concepts, where a corporation might recognize individuals and ideas that do not fall within their current operating paradigm but carry too much potential to risk losing. Instead, a startup is created within the parent company but with its own leadership structure where support and resources are provided by the parent, but with different constraints. In that regard, internal startups also provide a way to enable innovation spanning business units and international entities.
In every case, having a clear understanding of each entity’ s roles, ensuring the right agreements are in place, and maintaining a strong line of communication is key. This can extend into classified or export-controlled content, ensuring compliance through thoughtful review and control practices and keeping systems and data in appropriate hands.
As easy as it is for apprehension, egos, and ambition to define the relationships, it is vital they benefit all parties involved. A balanced synergy between these different groups will promote better workflow, reduce the likelihood of unwelcome surprises, and create the trusting environment on which innovation thrives, while offsetting some of the risk. A successful innovation framework will encourage such.
3 RESOURCES FOR INNOVATION
Every innovation effort requires some form of resource. A successful innovation framework must address this need. The resources to support innovation can be many and various. They can range from internal and external, hardware and software, financial and legal support, and human resources and information technology( IT). They include items such as time, funding, assorted types of labs, test and measurement equipment, and other tools to support various science and engineering disciplines. Also, within these resources must be room for experimentation, and failure.
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