Innovation Instruments for Translating Future Insights into Managerial Actions

Abstract

One of the challenges in innovation management is managing uncertainty. Most industries repeatedly face disruptions coming from emerging technologies, political and legislative regulation, alternative business models, as well as from socio-cultural shifts. Continuous scanning and monitoring of a company’s environment can contribute to reducing uncertainty. Corporate foresight activities address these dynamics and many methods and tools for collection and interpretation of information are known. But the utilization of this information remains a weakness of many companies. Foresight and innovation management literature has repeatedly lamented the failure of translating future insights into managerial actions and thus boosting a firm’s ability to adapt to a changing environment. Based on case studies in various industries three major instruments have been identified to cope with this problem and are presented in this paper on the example of Deutsche Telekom.

Keywords: innovation management, corporate foresight, technology scouting, roadmapping, Enterprise 2.0

JEL Classification: M10, M14