Living Tomorrow CEO Joachim De Vos explains in new book why innovation in organisations so often fails and identifies 7 keys to success

Companies are still making the same mistakes as 25 years ago when it comes to innovation. Living Tomorrow CEO and UGent Professor of Scenario Planning Joachim De Vos sees and hears this every day in his talks with (international) organisations. With his book Why innovation fails, he wants to point out where it all goes wrong while providing seven keys to successfully prepare organisations for the future. "Because we are not experiencing an 'era of change' but a 'change of era': in these uncertain times, innovation is indispensable for survival."

Why innovation fails: it's a remarkable title for a book by someone who breathes innovation and anticipated the arrival of the smartphone and e-commerce as early as 1995, but Joachim De Vos hopes it will wake up companies. "Every single day I talk to organisations out about their approach to the future, and I see the exact same mistakes recurring time and again. So I decided to write them down, together with my advice on how to get it right", says Joachim De Vos.

Naysayers

More than technological investments, corporate culture determines whether innovation is successful. Many businesses have a workforce where one in two is a naysayer. "If you employ too many people who immediately shake their head ‘no’ when confronted with change, it is almost impossible to bring innovation successfully to market", Joachim De Vos explains It doesn’t work that way. Experience can be an unmitigated negative factor in these turbulent times, as he proves in his 'Future Fitness formula'. The one thing organisations must have right now is an innovation doctrine: a shared belief in why innovation is indispensable to remain relevant in the future. It must be present everywhere and at all times. It must pervade all layers of the company. There must be structure in the approach, the projects and the teams. And everyone must be given the chance to experiment and fail."

De Vos therefore cites several well-known cases in his book, such as the defunct company Kodak. Did they not see digitalisation coming? On the contrary, they had a front row seat. In 1975 they invented the digital camera, becoming the market leader. They designed and sold digital solutions that no one else had and supplied almost all the components for the cameras in smartphones, including iPhones. Yet they still failed to convert this into lasting success. Cognitive inertia in the boardroom, an overly experienced culture and fear of losing the customer eventually killed the company.

Together with the world-famous digital Kodak inventor Steven Sasson, Joachim De Vos analysed for his book what exactly went wrong here and how the process could have been handled more effectively. Many companies will identify with the analysis and will hopefully be able to turn the tide.

7 keys to success

The most important lesson Joachim De Vos wants to pass on to business leaders is having the courage to look further ahead AND to embrace uncertainty. "Many companies think they are ready for the future with an action plan by 2025. That’s not a plan for the future, that’s tomorrow," says De Vos. "If you really want to be ready you have to dare to think 10 years ahead: who or what will make you redundant?"

From his experience and the many cases he analysed, Joachim De Vos distilled 7 keys to success:

1. ​ ​ ​ ​ Understand how quickly technology will redefine your sector

2. ​ ​ ​ ​ Is your organisation future-proof? Do you have vision, are you agile and fast and not too experienced?

3. ​ ​ ​ ​ How do you structure innovation in terms of size and ambitions?

4. ​ ​ ​ ​ Build a winning innovation team with these ground rules

5. ​ ​ ​ ​ Use your portfolio to cater to three horizons at once, from the immediate to distant future

6. ​ ​ ​ ​ Make future scenarios the core of your strategy: think dynamically and embrace uncertainty

7. ​ ​ ​ ​ Build your ecosystem because it is no longer possible to go it alone

Although the keys are at hand, Joachim De Vos notices that business leaders often still hesitate to actually use it. "Especially because it requires belief in the future as well as investment. Money that they would rather invest in the current business, which they know and where there are fewer uncertainties. But meanwhile I have learned meantime that the greatest return is in the future. I hope that more and more companies will start to realise this."

The book "Why innovation fails - the 7 keys to success" is published in Dutch and English by Lannoo. Click here for full details : https://www.lannoo.be/nl/why-innovation-fails

Press contact

Would you like to receive a copy of the book or schedule an interview with Joachim De Vos? Please let us know.

Karen Sleurs

Co-founder communication agency Wyngs

karen@wyngs.be

0485 28 73 52

About Joachim De Vos

Joachim De Vos is professor Scenario Planning at the University of Ghent. From day one, he was one of the driving forces behind the worldwide ​ success of Living Tomorrow, the House of the Future. Joachim also founded TomorrowLab and travels the world to give innovation and foresight advice and presentations to business leaders, innovation teams and policy makers.

About Living Tomorrow

Living Tomorrow is a social demonstration and innovation project aiming to prepare and inform organisations and people about the future. It does so by providing research and development support to dozens of government institutions and companies in the form of open innovation, vision and strategy guidance, and pilot and experiment development. Thanks to Living Tomorrow's years of experience and intensive guidance in collaboration with its spin-off TomorrowLab, future scenarios can result in demonstrations and proposals for new concepts.

Together with its partners, Living Tomorrow offers thousands of visitors a future and innovation experience. They receive expert explanations and Living Tomorrow and its partners receive valuable feedback. This feedback can then be included in further research into the future. In addition, visitors are also informed about the future, innovation, technology, social media, the Internet, etc.

More information on www.livingtomorrow.com and www.tomorrowlab.com