Seminars and Workshops
Seminars and consulting workshops are the main ways in which we work with organizations to apply the results of our research and so a central part of the Centre's work. We run several seminars a year and they are open to managers for all types of organization-typically from the manufacturing and service sectors but also, increasingly, from the public and the not-for-profit sectors. These include our flagship programme Managing Innovation, plus others on product development, intellectual property and portfolio management. Professor Bob Cooper of McMaster University in Canada and a world-renowned expert presents seminars on new product development and portfolio management.
Much of our work on innovation is related to companies' confidential strategies and so we run in-company workshops for senior management teams. Such workshops are highly customized to the client company's issues and follow an 'action workshop' approach-in which we work with an organization to produce an action plan to address their main issues related to innovation performance. Such action workshops can be used to boost the performance of new product development teams, to identify the steps needed to create a culture of innovation. Table 1 gives a list of some of the organizations that we have worked with over the last three years.
| Agilent Technologies |
Hewlett-Packard |
| BASF |
HSBC |
| BT |
NHS |
| Bosch |
Smith and Nephew |
| Enterprise Ireland |
Virgin Money |
| Forensic Science Service |
|
In our seminars and workshops, we aim to use innovative approaches. For example, we have developed a highly-successful simulation of new product development (NPD). This experiential learning approach has been used to diagnose NPD problems at leading organizations. Much of the material we use in seminars and workshops is based on our own research. However, we supplement this with a carefully selected range of tools and methods published by faculty at other leading business schools around the world. The emphasis is on teaching tools, techniques and approaches that we know through our experience working with companies will be the most effective.
Innovation Management: Strategy & Implementation
This programme enables delegates to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations have in driving innovation and to develop an action plan for boosting performance.
View details and download brochure
In-Company Workshops
We offer workshops on a wide range of topics such as improving new product development, creating a culture of innovation in your organization, and creativity. It should be stressed that the workshops we run for companies are highly customized and so we need to discuss client organizations' issues in detail, in order to determine the optimal design. The box case below gives a typical example.
|
Typical Project: Financial Services Company X
The CEO of a financial services company recently became convinced that his organization needed to become more innovative, if it was to be competitive in the long-term. With his top management team he developed the idea of becoming the first-to-market innovator, developing radically new services for the market. As the top management team was interested in best practice in other sectors, they invited Cranfield to present to them examples of innovation best practice from the manufacturing sector. The results for the team was that they thought much of the 'manufacturing experience' was relevant to financial services, they decided to focus on one business unit first and arranged for an innovation audit to be conducted.
The innovation audit showed that the chosen business unit had never been first-to-market in the last five years (in fact the business unit was perceived by staff to be a 'slow follower') and that the current processes and culture meant that a first-to-market strategy was not viable. In a workshop (see agenda below) with the top management team a new strategy was developed: become a 'fast follower' that learns from the first mover's mistakes and quickly introduces new services that are superior and hard-to-copy. In implementing this strategy significant changes were made to current processes. The new strategy was welcomed by staff, the organization has become more successful, and now has a market reputation for innovative products and services.
Workshop agenda
|
| 0900 |
Innovation best practice and the Innovation Pentathlon Framework |
| 1000 |
Management team break into 3 groups to discuss:
- Innovation: current strengths and weaknesses
- Opportunities to innovate including the business model
- Barriers in the market to innovation |
| 1130 |
Management teams present findings / discussion |
| 1230 |
Preparation of action plan integrating all 3 teams' conclusions |
In addition, below are two further examples of the content and impact of such workshops:
- Enhancing Product Innovation Action Workshop: this normally takes the whole of the new product development team and, over two days, identifies weaknesses in the key current project and makes defines an action plan to boost performance. Download Brochure
- Developing Collaborative Capabilities Action Workshop: this considers where most innovative ideas emerge in your company and the ever increasing need to create innovation networks. Part of the analysis is a network analysis diagram and identifying key actions Download Brochure