In today’s fast-moving, technology-driven environment, innovation has ceased to be an option. Instead, it’s a must-do for companies desiring to be on par with their competitors.
However, innovation usually means disruption, which can be challenging if the company wants to continue operations without interruption.
This dilemma is difficult for leaders: how can they balance disruptive innovation with the imperatives of business continuity?
Let’s explore how visionary CEOs and leaders can balance this tightrope, leveraging their organizations’ competitive advantages without compromising core operations.
Short-term disruption, long-term gains
The innovation–continuity balance
At the core of innovation is the introduction of new value products, processes and business models. However, given the rate at which technology is changing, adopting new technologies too often comes with tremendous operational disruption and risk.
Automation greatly enhances efficiency and customer experience but requires time investment, resource investment and sometimes a temporary disturbance of workflows.
Probably the most productive way to balance innovation with continuity is setting out a clear vision.
To manage this paradox, leaders need to realize that innovation and continuity serve opposing forces. More accurately, innovation and continuity are complementary parts of a resilient business strategy: business continuity ensures a firm can sustain its core services during changes; innovation ensures relevance and competitiveness.
Setting a clear vision for innovation
Probably the most productive way to balance innovation with continuity is setting out a clear vision, which aligns innovation efforts with long-term goals.
Leaders should start by asking why they need to innovate and what outcome they’re expecting. Setting such goals would help companies in prioritizing only those innovative initiatives that will add most value without disrupting essential operations.
For instance, the vision of a company could center on the customer and flexibility. From this, leadership can ensure innovations are targeted at improving the customer experience and creating a flexible workforce.
This way, each innovation can be tailored to the core of the company for easier implementation with existing operations.
Taking the incremental approach in innovation
Instead, firms are embracing incremental innovation, which involves making small and continuous improvements in the present products, processes and systems.
It allows the enterprise to evolve without shocking the system or the employees and provides a base upon which larger, more transformational changes can be made when the company is ready for them.
For example, Amazon constantly makes tiny adjustments in its operations: rerouting the paths of delivery drivers and fine-tuning the online purchase experience. Each of these small adjustments adds up and results in continual improvement without enforcing disruptive changes.
Another advantage of this process is it allows for continuous feedback and adjustment. This reduces the probability of failure and makes sure each step taken toward innovation builds on the previous step.
Creating a culture of flexibility and resilience
Many times, the balance between innovation and continuity is less about the implementation of new technologies and more about creating the culture that embraces and can adapt to change.
CEOs can foster this culture through open communications and training, preparing employees for changing roles or workflows.
Companies that manage to build a resilient workforce – one that embraces flexibility and sees change as an opportunity – are those that integrate disruptive innovation with only minimal disruption to their daily operations.
CEOs can foster this culture through open communications and training, preparing employees for changing roles or workflows. When people understand the benefits of innovation and know they will be supported through the changes, they are more able to adopt new processes with minimal resistance.
Companies like Google and Microsoft understand the importance of lifelong learning and adaptability, helping employees embrace innovation without feeling overwhelmed by rapid changes.
Driving quick yet controlled change with agile methodologies
Agile methodologies are those that focus on flexibility, accomplishing the work in iterative manners and thus can be very helpful in balancing innovation with continuity.
Though originally developed for software development, Agile has gained popularity across industries as a way of managing complex projects with minimal disruption.
In an Agile environment, companies can test new ideas in small pilots, get feedback and make changes where needed. For instance, a company may wish to try some new customer service technology within one department to then spread it across the whole company.
It will also allow the organization to assess the impact of innovation on business continuity and make necessary changes in preparation for scaling.
Agile ensures that through a feedback loop, innovations are always channeled to meet the operational needs of the company.
Strategic risk management: Reduction of innovation risks
Indeed, innovations can include many risks: technological failures, consumer dissatisfaction or cost overruns. On the other hand, strategic management might provide a possibility for a company to minimize these risks while seeking innovation.
Indeed, innovation can include many risks: technological failures, consumer dissatisfaction or cost overruns.
It involves firm cost–benefit analysis, testing innovations in controlled environments and holding backup systems as part of a continuity plan in case disruptions occur.
For example, a company could introduce a new inventory management system in a smaller market first by analyzing its impact on the supply chain, before rolling it out to the whole company.
Other efficient risk management includes building contingency plans. In these, the company identifies potential risks and builds strategies for when disruptions impact business operations.
Transparency of communication with stakeholders
Innovation can be unsettling – especially if stakeholders feel uninformed or uncertain about the changes involved. Transparency will help all stakeholders understand not only the potential benefits of innovation but also the steps the company is taking to ensure continuity.
Leaders can help allay concerns through frequent communication, whether that’s town hall-style meetings, videoconferences or clearly written emails. In these interactions, it’s important to explain how a certain new system will benefit and make employees’ jobs easier. Leaders may also choose to have a meeting with their investors about how it will help their long-term growth.
If the stakeholders are aligned with the process, they will be more cooperative in terms of innovative initiatives and follow the changes as they happen.
Customer-centric innovation
Innovation – being able to balance disruption with continuity – can be most effectively achieved by a customer-centric approach. In focusing on how innovations benefit customers directly, companies can justify changes while making sure continuity in the customer experience is paramount.
For example, the introduction of new digital tools or channels should not affect the quality and accessibility of the service to existing customers.
This has been evidenced through leaders keeping the customer experience at the heart of innovation strategies that introduce new ideas, which enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction, hence balancing the need for disruption with continuity of service.
Learning from failures and adapting
Finally, learning from failure and putting that as a driver toward adaptation is part of that essential balance between innovation and continuity. Not all innovations will succeed, but companies that want to try a ‘fail fast, learn faster’ attitude can turn even failures into useful lessons.
Learning from failure and putting that as a driver toward adaptation is part of that essential balance between innovation and continuity.
When a pilot project or new technology fails to meet expectations, one needs to analyze what went wrong and adjust the approach. The resulting culture does not merely tolerate the risks of innovation but can actually turn these challenges into opportunities.
Continuous learning brings confidence in innovation, plus the drive for reliable operations.
Continuity and resilience
In other words, the innovation dilemma requires disrupting an organization while assuring business continuity. It calls for reflective leadership, strategic planning and adaptive capabilities.
The good news is that CEOs can make it work today by formulating clear goals for innovation, embracing incremental changes, creating a fluid culture and managing risks proactively.
Attention to customer needs, along with open communication, so far has enabled them to create organizations capable of embracing change without sacrificing reliability.
In other words, balancing innovation with continuity presupposes that a company should be resilient and forward-looking.
With thoroughly weighed plans and an adaptive outlook, the CEOs of today plot their course through such a quagmire and set up their companies for success in an age where the only thing stable is change.
