As a program executive with Salesforce, I am fortunate to be at the forefront of driving innovation and transformation for our most ambitious enterprise customers. As I continue my journey, I wanted to share a few key observations on the art and science of executing an innovation strategy for enterprises.

Sustained innovation requires top-down leadership and a framework for defining success

Identifying leadership, engagement, and a great business model are fundamental to innovation within an enterprise.

Consistent leadership, passion and sponsorship are fundamental to executing innovation-led priorities for the enterprise. Leaders who represent qualities commonly referred to as 'Founder's Mentality' are more capable of driving sustained competitive advantage in the market place. Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff are inspiring examples of leaders who represent these qualities.Hereis a great article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) that provides some additional context and research on the concept of the Founder's Mentality. Leveraging this, and committing to continued innovation as a source of competitive advantage not only creates long-term value for appropriate stakeholders, but also defends against ongoing market disruption.

In addition, leaders require a sound framework that can be leveraged to communicate their vision and drive value proposition. One of the best tools I have found that does this effectively is a business model canvas created byAlexander Osterwalder. The business model canvas provides the ability to capture key elements for creating a thriving enterprise in a systematic way. It also helps define dynamics across customers, channels and competitors in ways that pressure test the core ability of the business model and validate competitive advantage for the current and future state of enterprise.

Defining the future while performing today is a deliberate practice

A thriving enterprise should focus on future growth while also concentrating on value creation in the present. An approach, therefore, to re-evaluate the current business portfolio becomes a necessary practice for a maturing enterprise. Geoffrey Moore provides a great model for this evaluation. In his recent book, Zone to Win, Geoffrey offers a documented blueprint on how best to address challenges that enterprises face while trying to establish next generation growth. Further, the most important aspect of this framework is that the team driving core growth and source of stability (productivity zone) for the enterprise in the current state, is fundamentally different that the team driving innovation / experimentation for future growth (incubation zone). Understanding this, and executing the framework accordingly becomes an immense responsibility for the leadership team.

Reframe the operating context from cost to value and ROI drives investment

Making key investments in skillful resources, optimized processes and technology enablers is a critical decision for any C-Level executive. This makes innovation and transformation a key value driving decision within the enterprise instead of terming it a cost or an expense. In addition, appending an ROI to every major investment builds the discipline of data driven decision making and allows a C-Level executive to prioritize key initiatives while optimizing non essential costs across the enterprise. The best way to change the context from cost to value, is by conducting a current state assessment of the existing landscape. Doing so, brings to light misalignment and inefficiencies that can drive the backlog for change and provide a measure for value once those changes are enabled. This can then help with driving ROI decisions within the enterprise for any net new change implemented and investments made.

Leverage user centered design principles to foster ongoing customer impact

Leveraging user-centered design thinking along with strategic priorities and a comprehensive technology platform ensures relentless focus on being “customer first.” This article from HBR describes the fundamental shift facing modern enterprises today. Design thinking also supports an empathy first and human aligned balance allowing for enriched experiences while building useful and usable solutions. This is achieved by providing a framework that appeals to understanding user experience and emotions, while building prototypes and tools to explore solutions.

'Do' leadership by way of Experimentation is required

There is a profound partnership between a visionary C-Level executive and the execution team responsible for the strategy. A high performing team requires focus on getting things done in nimble, agile and constructive ways. Continuous learning, openness and a willingness to be scrappy and tactical helps drive measurable results. It is important to pay attention to quality and scalability all while building a flexible process to evaluate and change as priorities shift. The best way I have observed “Do Leadership” in action is when teams enable the process of experimentation. Finding areas of experimentation allows teams to validate ideas that have been previously prioritized. Surveys, prototyping tools, and A/B testing all provide effective ways to conduct experiments and present concrete evidence in relatively short time frames, allowing teams to thrive and move on to the next stage / or experiment without significant costs.

Become an innovation brand by sharing successes

Storytelling is the most impactful way to relate and understand needs, ideas and initiatives. It provides an anchor to drive success internally and externally and brings a level of excitement and energy that drive continued innovation. Leveraging the momentum of user groups, industry conferences, and sales meetings are important “brand builders” internally within the enterprise, and externally within the ecosystem. I personally witnessed the announcement and launch of Twitter at the South by South West (SXSW) interactive conference. The founders were able to leverage the momentum of a conference well known for driving disruption. The awareness, growth and scale with like minded users and early technology adopters was a fundamental launch pad of success and Twitter benefited significantly.

Engage passionate employees to make a cultural shift

The best part about my job is changing lives. Being purpose driven and helping people become impactful change makers is the most fulfilling byproduct of driving innovation. I am fortunate be able to expose our culture of innovation to our customers, our partners, and stakeholders. Focusing on fostering a culture that is open to diversity, equality and gender parity can be a significant factor in driving innovation within the enterprise. It provides a sense of belonging, and builds current and future trailblazers within the enterprise.

Driving and executing an innovation strategy is both personal and strategic; disciplined and organic. There is no quick formula that tells us how to do it best, and each enterprise is unique in its approach to defining what it means to them as a core value.

About the Author

Bhusha Mehta is a program executive in the customer success group and is responsible for delivery of innovation and transformation services for enterprise customers at Salesforce.