Arcus Innovation Institute- Consulting and Facilitation. For ideas that matter – In Pursuit of the Perfect Brainstorm. What’s clear is that in recent years, most corporations have gone meta — they have started thinking about thinking. And all that thinking has led many executives to the same conclusion: We need help thinking. They have realized they don’t know what they don’t know.
The Gap
The Arcus Innovation Institute functions as a thought leader. It looks at the “Other Side of Innovation.” Arcus Consulting Group solves problems, the Arcus Innovation Institute helps companies to self-diagnose their problems and self-discover their own solutions through the Institute’s thought leadership.
Why are some companies able to consistently conceive of, create, and bring to market innovative and profitable new products and services while so many others struggle? It isn’t the amount of money they spend on Research and Development.
After all, the Arcus Annual Innovation study has shown time and again that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending. What matters more is the combination of talent, knowledge, tools and processes — the capabilities — that successful companies put together to create products and services they can successfully take to market.
The Process
The Arcus Innovation Institute work has elements of management consulting, growth strategy and a bit of design-firm draftsmanship, but its specialty is conceiving new businesses, and what is really the art of innovation. The Institute is built on the premise that creative thinking is a kind of expertise. Learn more about the Arcus Innovation methodology.
Like Procter & Gamble and Mars who have tapped into innovative thinking, you can hire the Arcus Innovation Institute to think on your behalf. For example, companies like P&G have leveraged the ideas from a project that involved a study of the future of water and what it portends for a company that makes water-dependent products like soap and laundry detergent. Mars, the candy maker, looked for ideas to define the current meaning of “indulgence,” on the theory that it now conjures pampering rather than stuffing your face.
Or for example, to conceive business plans that would improve the experience of commercial air travel. Without the right atmospheric mix, no brainstorming session will produce the cognitive version of lightning. Arcus can deliver the right atmospheric mix.
Project fee
The Arcus Innovation Institute can be hired to think on your behalf, for a reasonable and flexible fee, based on the complexity and ambiguity of the question you need answered. Or you can ask the Arcus Innovation Institute to teach your corporation how to generate better ideas on its own; the Arcus Innovation Institute imparts that expertise in one and five-day how-to-brainstorm training sessions.
Arcus Innovation Series
The Arcus Innovation Series is based on indepth interviews with over 1500 senior executives from orgnaizations like Siemens, Unilever, Domtar, Canada Foundation for Innovation and Maple Leaf Foods. They argue that leadership is about having a vision for innovation and creating a framework for action around the vision to allow partners and employees to pioneer new ways of working.
Contact Arcus to find out how to benchmark your innovation strategy:
- A presentation on best practices from 1500 companies
- A culture change audit
- An innovation workshop
- An innovation strategy
Arcus research indicates that to create a culture of innovation, you need to be surrounded by highly talented people, and you need to find a way to transmit your passion to them, so they will buy into your vision of the future, perform at the highest possible levels, and come up with innovative solutions to the challenges of achieving the vision. No surprise, then, that the topic of innovation has been gaining ground as CEOs seek to incorporate concepts like “a culture of innovation” into their assessments of a company’s long-term value.
Innovation in healthcare and the “bottom-up Reformation”: An interview with Mr. Neil Seeman, Director and Primary Investigator, Health Strategy Innovation Cell at Massey College, University of Toronto. Mr. Seeman says we need new out-of-the-box measurement tools that recognize “successful failures”. In healthcare, in particular, we talk a lot about our “success stories”. We don’t like talking about our failures. The challenge to admitting to failure has to do with our organizational culture in healthcare. There is a lack of understanding in healthcare that patients are leading what Steve Case calls a “bottom-up Reformation”. Read the interview.
Corporate performance and governance: An interview with Mr. Jim Leech, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). A message to CEOs on performance benchmarks, governance, risk consciousness and performance systems. First, risk consciousness needs to be built into all processes of the business. It needs to be integral to the compensation and investment process. At times, management has taken on significant levels of risk to produce superior results so that they could increase their compensation. Risk needs to be brought into the equation. Senior executives are starting to understand that. Read the interview.
Globalive’s view on the Innovation Imperative: An interview with Mr. Anthony Lacavera, CEO, Globalive Communications Corp. Mr. Lacavera says its critical for companies to be prepared to grow in a profitable and sustainable way. Globalive’s strength has been low management turnover and a strong, cohesive and consistent strategy. The company’s drivers of success have been the right team and a consistent and disciplined approach. Read the interview.
Brand leadership and vision for innovation: An interview with Mr. Geoff Craig, VP & GM, Brand Building. Mr. Craig argues that leadership is about having a vision for innovation and creating a framework for action around the vision to allow partners and employees to pioneer new ways of working. Read the interview.
Innovation in Manufacturing and return on capital : An interview with Mr. Andrew Tremblay, Business Development Manager, Domtar EarthChoice, Corporate Markets Canada, Domtar Corp. Mr. Tremblay says that in capital intensive businesses, innovation needs to be seen as a way to get better return on the capital employed. Read the interview.
A shared vision for innovation and change: An interview with Ms. Kathryn Fitzwilliam, Corporate Vice President, Marketing Resources. Ms. Fitzwilliam says first and foremost you need to make sure that people understand and support a shared objective. Read the interview