Innovation from outer space and beyond
2009-10-12This week, Googol unveils the Innovation Value Chain at the 60th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Daejeon, Korea. Googol has been invited to present and discuss space technology transfer and structured innovation systems for space technology.
Korea is considered to be the second most innovative nation in the world, following Singapore, and Daejeon is its own Silicon Valley.
"Thanks to its cutting-edge nature, the space industry has been leading international R&D for decades. We are humbled by IAC's invitation, and very excited about this opportunity to get further involved in space technology transfer projects." says Dariush Ghatan, founder and CEO of Googol.
In the current economic climate, it's not uncommon for companies to downsize or pause R&D initiatives in favour of core business. Googol's research has proven that companies who focus actively on innovation have twice the growth rate as those who don't, which clearly underlines the importance of innovation.
Googol’s experience from working with a large number of global blue-chip companies has shown that the route from research to commercial breakthrough faces thresholds that can be anticipated and proactively managed through applying a structured approach.
The term "innovation" is often confused with "idea", and there's a common conception that the big challenge is to come up with the right idea. Nothing could be further from the truth. While an innovation process indeed starts with an idea, or by defining a need, the real challenge is to validate the idea and guide it from creation to commercial success. This is the basic rationale behind the Innovation Value Chain (IVC).
In a white paper entitled "Shaping a Tech Transfer System based on current Innovation and Corporate Venturing experiences" which is being released at the IAC, Googol details the IVC and explains how a structured approach to innovation is the basis of an efficient technology transfer system.
Dariush Ghatan, Googol's CEO, says:
"We know that innovation is key to sustainable growth for companies in every industry. Googol's unique approach – helping companies bring opportunities to life by working efficiently with innovation – has excited and generated results within many industries. The Innovation Value Chain has been developed to illustrate the importance of properly guiding an idea from its creation all the way to commercial success. The big opportunity is not the idea – it is to build a wide path from R&D to commercialization by involving the right people, processes and metrics."
The Innovation Value Chain encompasses challenges and solutions that range from organization to products & services, to social structures. Focussing on the so called "Opportunity Epicentre" – the gap between development and commercialization – the IVC shows how resources in terms of optimized financial support, competency and management focus, and methodologies such as Open Innovation, Metrics and Internal Corporate Venturing, can be applied to close the gap and ensure commercial success. Googol refers to this as the “Holy Grail of Innovation” – when the Opportunity Epicentre has been widened to allow products and solutions to successfully journey from Research to Market.
Internal corporate venturing (ICV) – the practice of allocating company resources to separated units that boost new business initiatives – is an important part of a structured innovation approach. New products and services launched through a separate organization or legal entity apart from their "motherships" tend to grow both quicker and more sustainably than when launched within the parent organization. India's space program can be seen as a type of internal corporate venture with a very high success rate, where the program was launched as an independent initiative and was allocated the right people and resources to succeed in record time.
Cecilia Hertz, CEO of Umbilical Design, has already seen good results from applying a functional innovation focus:
"Umbilical design is specialized in design and architecture for space and extreme environments. Our recently initiated collaboration with Googol will help us with further commercialization of several projects that result from space R&D. Googol's structured approach to innovation, combined with their extensive global network, will be of vital importance to our growth and development. We have also seen that in order to commercialize ideas, internal corporate venturing is often a viable approach. When a new product or service is launched through its own specialized company, the success rate is commonly much higher as independence tends to inspirate greatness. You simply have to dare to think in new orbits in order to create something new!"
Read press release in Swedish »