Revolutionary and evolutionary innovation

If you were Dutch and were asked to give an example of a sport innovation, the chances are you would mention the clap skate. Perhaps you also know that the skater can skate faster with this type of skate because the clap mechanism allows the skater to stretch the ankle when pushing off, while the blade remains on the ice. What is less well known is that getting this innovation into widespread use in practice didn’t happen without a struggle.

Agility, the business model and customer development

Sport innovation is about agility, the business model and customer development, as Steve Blank put it when describing start-ups. In terms of the idea for the innovation – the goal – the sport (‘the customer’) plays a leading role, and that is the best guarantee of realising sustainable and well-used products and services. Experience has taught us that consultation with the sport tends to run most efficiently with elite sport, because more often than not the pooled knowledge and experience – generated over decades, both current and projecting to the future – is easily accessible in the figure of the technical director. Elite sport does however come with top-level specifications and top-level urgency, and above all it is a relatively small market. From the perspective of economic profitability (‘the business model’) it is often more attractive to focus attention on competitive and recreational sports people rather than those in elite sport, and to talk to them, observe them and distil the question from there. Of key importance is to work with a growth model, in other words: start with a development project of limited scope and duration, and expand this step by step with small, consecutive projects or project extensions. With this approach the project delivers regular results and is easier to steer (‘agility’). Quick wins are especially valued in the sporting world. It is important that project team members work closely together physically and with a high iteration frequency during the development process.

Technological and social innovation

The market is forcing businesses to innovate increasingly more quickly in order to keep ahead of the competition. Companies can only innovate more quickly if the company structure is in order and employees have the space to work on innovations. Social innovation plays an important role in this. Social innovation consists of the development of new management skills (dynamic management), applying innovative forms of organisation (flexible organisation), achieving excellent labour relations (smarter working) and collaborating with external parties (co-creation). 77% of innovation success is determined by social innovation and 23% by technological innovation. Technological innovation is of course an important and necessary platform, but social innovation clearly adds huge momentum
towards profiting from investment in innovation. Source: Technologische en sociale innovatie in een concurrerende markt (Technological and social innovation in a competitive market), Panteia/EIM & Erasmus University/RSM.

Innovation XL

http://www.sportknowhowxl.nl/achtergronden/innovation-xl (in Dutch)