Finding Continuous Relevance

The recurring challenge of being an internal innovation platform is to find relevance and strategic alignment with the corporation in which it is housed. Having said that, if there is a long-term strategic path that a corporation espouses towards, an internal innovation system can be just the answer to providing a stream of opportunities and solutions.

There are multiple lines of expectations emerging from an organization such as Innoventures. One group within Softtek expects groundbreaking, disruptive technologies with the potential to shake up industries across LatAm and the US. Another group, with equal measure, expects products and solutions that are vertically aligned with Softtek’s current solution map. And, yet another group, believes that Innoventures is the path to creating a sustainable, long-term strategy that guides Softtek into its future.

Where Innoventures will innovate, at this moment, following its recent success in identifying opportunities across the spectrum, will incorporate all three channels of thought. At a recent strategy session with Alex Camino, CMO and Chief Strategy Officer for Softtek, I understood the following:

1. Softtek, inherently, is not a disruptive organization. Yes, some level of disruption may possibly be implanted at certain pockets of the organization. For the large part, Softtek associates are comfortable building on their known territories and challenges.
2. Softtek’s long-term strategy, in and of itself, is embracing a path that is far more solutions and software centric. The strategy itself presents a minor disruption with Softtek.
3. Softtek’s verticals and customers, which bring consistent revenue streams, have to be the backbone driving Softtek’s new strategy. In other words, the existing business has to support and promote any new strategy.

Innoventures, as a result, is moving away from its current focus of three specific areas in which we innovate. We are moving to a model where we can develop solutions for Softtek’s existing verticals and that have the capabilities of morphing to solutions for the future. Going back to the question of finding continuous relevance: it’s in the key areas that can be monetized quickly by serving a current Softtek vertical and plays a critical piece in the solution map of Softtek’s tomorrow.

However, innovation seems off-target if there isn’t some focus on finding the next big thing. Innoventures has to remain lean enough to identify possibilities for disruption. While Innoventures is no longer concentrating on finding disruption, we remain open and inviting to the possibilities.

Relevance within the world of Softtek lies in showing tangible results that morph into Sottek’s next big thing. The goal now is to create a pipeline of initiatives that can feed into current market demands. At the same time, these initiatives also form the foundation to creating solutions for the future. The solutions can be developed in concert to serve a bigger purpose – create an infrastructure for Softtek’s new path.