Whose Job Is It Anyway?

Henry Chesbrough’s article in today’s WSJ about the importance of business models in innovation reinforces a point we often make here: the most important, effective, and disruptive innovations are often the result of new business models, not new products or technologies. (Think Netflix to Blockbuster or iTunes to the rest of the music industry.)

Often, we look at the core reasons companies are unable to create new business models: they have entrenched infrastructures and a vested interest in maintaining them, they struggle to see the world as it could be vs as it is, they are risk averse, insular and myopic. They are fat and happy. Disruption tends to come from the upstarts and companies on the margins that need to find a new way in.

Chesbrough raises another good point: Business models are nobody’s job. R&D looks at technology. General Managers try to maximize profits within their systems and structures for predictable quarter-to-quarter growth. The CFO tends to look at different factors and metrics. Marketing focuses on current brands and capabilities. The CEO generally looks at the bigger picture vs. the business unit level challenges.

In other words, for many companies, business model innovation is out of scope - no one owns the responsibility. And yet, it offers perhaps the biggest point of leverage for innovation.

Maybe it’s time to appoint a CBMO. And if you’re not in a position to create structural change in your organization by adding this job, why not pick up the discipline and responsibility yourself? If you’re not looking at the model, you’re not maximizing your innovation potential. Start there and then branch out.