13 July 09
Computer Sciences on Innovation
This Business Week podcast has an great interview with Lemuel Lasher, Chief Innovation Officer at Computer Sciences Corporation. Admittedly, enterprise software innovation isn’t the sexiest topic, but Lasher presents one of the crisper points of view that I’ve heard in a while. I was also impressed at how articulate he was while getting grilled by the interviewer.
Not surprisingly CSC has an incredibly measured and analytical philosophy on innovation. They’ve created an innovation taxonomy that outlines innovations types (process innovation, product innovation) and amplitudes (disruptive innovation, incremental innovation). Their focus is on adjacent and incremental innovation — efforts that have immediate and short-term value to their customers. As a services company they believe that this brings them, their customers and their shareholders a greater rate of return.
Lasher believes that disruptive innovations, ones that are more breakthrough and create new markets, are more the domain of product innovation.
In these tough economic times, Lasher doesn’t believe that R&D cutbacks equal innovation output. He believes that things like a company’s culture, operations, tools and incentives play more a role in innovation that traditional R&D. Kind of makes sense.
What are the biggest mistakes that he sees companies making in regards to innovation?
A lot of companies view innovation as the objective rather than the means. They focus on an innovation agenda rather than the needs and objectives of the business.
A research report is referenced in the interview on CSC’s long-term view of disruptive innovations, which I haven’t read, that seems incredibly underwhelming. But the rest of the interview is definitely worth a listen.
Does all this talk of enterprise innovation have you just hungry for more? You can find a bunch of CSC videos of Lasher on YouTube.
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