CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER (CINO)

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER

The term ‘Chief Innovation Officer’ was first coined and described in the 1998 book Fourth Generation R&D. Organizations with a CINO/CTIO are practicing part of the fourth generation of innovation theory and practice to emerge since 1900. A Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) or Chief Technology Innovation Officer (CTIO) is a person in a company who is primarily responsible for managing the process of innovation and change management in an organization, as well as being in some cases the person who ‘originates new ideas but also recognizes innovative ideas generated by other people’. The CINO also manages technological change and leading the way to transformational innovation. The Chief Innovation Officer is beginning to bridge the gap between the other C-level executives.

Traditionally, CEOs are responsible for business direction and strategy, CIOs for IT and information management and CFOs for cost management and budgeting. Within business departments, incremental innovation is common but, especially in large or diverse organisations, someone is needed to manage the transformational strategic innovation that straddles the entire business, who has buy-in from CEO and can galvanise the whole workforce.

It is here where room has appeared in the C-suite for an executive who links the traditional CEO, CFO and CIO roles – step forward the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO). The CINO has evolved from the CIO position into a distinct C-suite role. Rather than an 'executive without portfolio', the CINO is seen as key to an organisation’s future success

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICERS: BRIDGE THE COLLABORATION GAP

Chief Innovation Officers are in the news. The impetus for big business to give innovation a seat at the C-level table has now reached even the most traditional industries. With empowered Chief Innovation Officers, large organizations recognize that successful innovation is more and more complex to achieve and require an all-encompassing approach including people, technology and collaboration.

Thus the success of innovation within large organizations has been—and remains—consistently low. Depending on the industry, up to 49% now fail, according to George Castillon, writing in The Journal of Product Innovation & Management in 2013. The New York Times has described innovation as “the crucial ingredient in all economic progress—higher growth for nations, more competitive products for companies, and more prosperous careers for individuals.” It’s no surprise that we’re seeing more and more Chief Innovation Officers, just as the rise of Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers seemed inevitable 15 years ago.

The new CINO role is required to stimulate and foster collaboration between teams and individuals so that they can innovate together. Just as new technologies have disrupted the enterprise and created the roles of Chief Technology and Chief Information Officer, the C-suite is poised for continued expansion this year with the rise of the Chief Innovation Officer. Companies such as IBM and Fujitsu are already leading the charge with innovation roles dedicated to bringing new ideas to life and changing the way people work, create, and communicate. These will be the adoptive leaders of new technologies and processes, enhancing innovation with internal, and external, teams and partners.

For CINO’s, this underlying technology, which draws from multiple systems and applications to help teams collaborate in a fluid and parallel way, can help achieve cross-disciplinary, data-driven global innovation.

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER: A ROLE IN ITS INFANCY

The Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) and his team explore new territories by leveraging innovation intelligence, ideation, and experimentation. The challenge for large companies is to be agile despite their size. A company is designed to have the best P&L. Therefore, it is very good at incremental innovation. However, most of the time it sucks at disruptive innovation. The role of the CINO (Chief Innovation Officer) is to redefine what is possible for the company.

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER:  DRIVE INNOVATION

The role of the is to drive innovation across the whole company, across the silos, across the functions, across the business units, across the geographical areas, and possibly beyond the company’s traditional borders. Ultimately, the CINO must ensure that innovation delivers business results. Because the CINO function is still emerging and every sector, company, and country is different, we do not pretend to provide here a detailed, comprehensive overview of all the functions of a Chief Innovation Officer. The following should not be taken as the grand truth on what a CINO should do in a company but rather as a common basis for the CINO role in most mature companies:

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER:  FOCUS ON BUSINESS VALUE

The purpose of the CINO is to identify disruptive threats and opportunities based on emerging trends. Innovation is business oriented, and so is the CINO. The CINO ensures that innovation initiatives are designed for business value creation. An innovation project should not be undertaken just because it is fashionable (nanotechnologies, drones, 3-D printing, and so forth). To ensure that innovation is focused on business value, the CINO is in charge of defining and monitoring the metrics of innovation performance.

CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER: DEFINING LANGUAGE AND CHANGING CULTURE

The first function of the CINO is to develop a culture of innovation in the company. To be able to create such a culture, the first key is language. A common language for innovation must be defined across the entire company. A shared language is essential, because it prevents potential conflicts, such as an employee asking, “What is the role the CINO? We already have a CTO.”

In addition, once there is agreement on the definition of innovation (specifically, disruptive innovation), determining how to evaluate its performance becomes easier. Core-business innovation is generally a matter of executing the standard processes of the company, and adequate metrics already exist for measuring its performance. On the contrary, evaluating the performance of disruptive innovation, although it is driven by business, cannot be done with the traditional indicators. Once the common language has been agreed upon, another job of the CINO is communication. By communication, we mean both internal and external. Internal communication shapes the company culture. It is the only way to make the residents of the business silos aware that innovation can happen everywhere in the company. External communication can be a means to develop the innovative spirit of the company in such a way that it attracts creative talents and partners from horizons far away from the core business.

Nota : Penulisan ini adalah sebahagian daripada pembacaan. Sekiranya ia dirujuk, sebarang penambahbaikan, cadangan dan pandangan  bolehlah emel kepada mohdfairuz.mohdyusof@gmail.com 

Reading & References

1.     Miller, W. and Morris, L. Fourth Generation R&D - Managing Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation, Wiley, 1998

2.     Chief Innovation Officers Must Bridge The Collaboration Gap

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2017/05/24/why-chief-innovation-officers-must-bridge-the-collaboration-gap/#1757f3ba6963)

3.     The Chief Innovation Officer Should be in Charge of New Territories. Not More. Not Less.

(http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/the-chief-innovation-officer-should-be-in-charge-of-new-territories-not-more-not-less/)

4.     Rise of the Chief Innovation Officer leading the way to transformational innovation

(http://www.information-age.com/rise-chief-innovation-officer-leading-way-transformational-innovation-123457889/)