Bupa marketing boss John Moore: ‘Innovation departments is where innovation goes to die’
Innovation departments are nothing more than business divisions “where innovation goes to die”, the marketing director of health care fund Bupa has declared.
Earlier this week, Bupa chief marketer John Moore told a conference that once a company creates such a unit, innovation across the rest of the business is strangled.
He added that disruption and innovation “are the same thing” and must be approached with a view to solving a customer problem.
He’s spot on. Most digital projects fail for similar reasons. Forrester published an article saying 65% of digital projects fail. They fail through a lack of ownership but also because the customer gets forgotten as internal power turf wars play out.
Digital innovation requires a cultural change first and that’s a job that requires more than one department. There is a frenzy of investments in stuff at the edge of these big companies but it’s just a distraction to the main game. Just ask the Woolworths CEO.
Applauding.
True, ground-breaking innovation happens via tinkering… almost always (though not exclusively) by people outside the category/business/field.
And most people (not all, but most) with “innovation” on their business card, have never successfully innovated or made or sold a damn thing.
Yep, this is spot on. Organisations need to start thinking of innovation as a ‘layer’ and not as a department.
McKinsey refer to it as an ‘Innovation system’ but we’re all talking about the same thing – a culture and a set of processes that encourage customer-centered problem solving and the idea that solutions and great ideas can come from anywhere inside an organisation.
Its time senior marketing professionals stop with the motherhood statements and hiding behind significant marketing budgets. Innovation is about ideas – regardless of what you call a department. Surely John Moore understands that the concept of ‘disruption’ has been around for ever. He should bring new thinking to the table rather than the drap marketing that Bupa is deliverying before he talks about innovation