Innovation Strategy – How Do You Manage Knowledge?

Bloomberg recently highlighted the trouble that big companies are having overcoming traditional introverted innovation theories and competing with younger companies that have been growing quickly through the use of open innovation strategy.

One of the key stumbling blocks for many larger companies when it comes to innovation seems to be the failure to appropriately manage talent and ideas. Many established companies have grown out of their standard internal collaboration tools and knowledge can be lost between teams and geographies. Younger, more agile companies that are entering the scene typically have an advantage of size; having a smaller team can make it easier to share ideas and adjust to a rapidly changing industry. As Tony Davila describes it,

The advantage of the startup ecosystem is that it brings together people with diverse skills and perspectives and allows the good ideas that result from their interchange to gain traction, without hierarchies of decision-makers to quash them. Corporate processes not only neglect but often prevent such breakthroughs.

The question we are left with is, how do you improve knowledge management within an organization? Knowledge Communities, the platform that enables ongoing exchange and transfer of information. The transactional nature of the exchanges helps organizations capitalize on the resources they already have, closing the gap and allowing companies to continue innovating and performing in today’s ultra-competitive industries.