Case Study: Defining an Enterprise Innovation Strategy

People working in a room to create innovation statements

20 Mar Case Study: Defining an Innovation Strategy with a Global Hospitality Brand

Posted at 18:32h in Case Study, Innovation Strategy by The Design Gym 0 Comments

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At A Glance:

CLIENT:
Fortune 500 Global Hospitality Company

TIMELINE:
6 weeks

PROJECT TYPE:
Strategy

DECISION MAKER:
VP of Customer Experience

FUNCTION:
Innovation Team

The Challenge:

One of the world’s largest hospitality and travel brands, our client needed to define the current state of innovation in the company. To help them curate an overarching vision for what the future of innovation could be, they turned to The Design Gym.

The Solution:

Over the course of six weeks, we identified innovation gaps and overlap, facilitated productive discussions with senior leaders, and recommended areas for “how to win” in the innovation space.

Discovery

We started by learning where innovation leaders were in agreement on the role and purpose of innovation—and where there weren’t. We conducted 25 interviews with executive leaders across functions to understand the current state of innovation and the future vision. Through our discovery research, we uncovered the areas where leaders were undeniably aligned, as well as those where there were opportunities to be more intentional with innovation goals and processes.

Design

Three key insights emerged from our research, which we brought into a half-day Co-Creation Workshop. During this collaborative session, we engaged 10 senior leaders in co-creating the team’s Innovation Strategy. Armed with their critical input, our team then designed and developed three potential strategies forward. Each approach showcased a different level of risk, investment, and potential. We created process maps, identified trade-offs, and used supporting evidence to bring each strategy to life.

Delivery

To increase the effectiveness of future innovation efforts, our team drafted an Enterprise Innovation Charter, with the recommendation that the organization clearly define its objectives for innovation, align the right teams around the charter, and identify resourcing models that align with its risk tolerance and expected results. Our final deliverable acted as a collection of insights, recommendations, and thought-starters for the Experience Design team to use in conversations with C-Suite leaders to craft the company’s approach to innovation, and each team’s role to make it a reality.

The Results:

Quotes and key findings from 25 Executive Leadership Interviews
Assets to facilitate one 4-hour Executive Leadership Workshop with ~10 senior leaders
An Enterprise Innovation Charter summarizing key findings from executive interviews, opportunities that emerged from the leadership workshop, and 3x distinct Innovation Strategies to better align and inform investments, metrics, and operating models

mock-up of various innovation strategy frameworks — Over the course of our research with dozens of executive leaders, we uncovered various mental models for the meaning and purpose of innovation. By making these frameworks tangible, the team was able to prioritize and align around a common strategy for innovation.

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The Design Gym is a strategy and innovation consultancy helping leaders to grow their business by fully unlocking the power of their most important advantage: their people. We work at the intersection of business strategy, experience design, and change management to engage the people that matter most to your work: your customers, your leaders, and your employees. See something that resonates with a project or challenge you're working on? Shoot us a note at [email protected].