PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 11, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- A top priority for four out of five CEOs, organic growth is a common goal that many companies strive to achieve but struggle to actually accomplish. The stumbling block for many is the lack of a holistic plan for business innovation that not only creates new products and identifies new markets, but also develops new approaches to customer service and business processes. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania offers an executive education program -- Full-Spectrum Innovation: Driving Organic Growth -- that provides a roadmap for "full-spectrum" innovation and introduces practical tools that companies can use to recognize and act on emerging opportunities in the marketplace.
"Many companies say they want to be more innovative and that innovation is key to their growth and profitability strategy, but not all of them know how to do it," says Eric Snyder, global marketing director of Tyco Electronics. "By attending Wharton's Full-Spectrum Innovation: Driving Organic Growth, I was able to take away specific actionable ideas and strategies that I have infused into our organization."
Offered at Wharton's Philadelphia campus in January and June of 2008, the three-day course is designed for leaders who are responsible for driving top-line growth and promoting business innovation -- including strategy leaders, managers of new businesses, chief innovation officers, chief technology officers, and product development leaders. World-class faculty and participants from around the globe with management backgrounds in areas such as marketing, strategy, and technology development will work together to redesign both the "what" and the "how" of innovation in their organizations.
The executive education program examines innovation not simply as a process of inventing and launching new products, but as a "full-spectrum," holistic plan that involves creating new business models, improving customer experience, and identifying new markets. The focus is on organic, or internal, growth as opposed to the strategy of expansion through mergers and acquisitions.
Participants gain hands-on experience through group dialogues, interactive lectures, case studies, and projects drawn from their own companies. They return to their companies with an "innovation toolkit" -- a set of practical tools as well as mental models that they can use as soon as they get back to work. These tools allow them to be better innovation leaders, engaging in richer strategic innovation conversations with their colleagues.
"The real innovations stem in part from our being able to anticipate opportunities, which we call having good peripheral vision," says Roch Parayre, a fellow at Wharton's Aresty Institute of Executive Education, managing director of Decision Strategies International, Inc., and co-academic director of the program. "If you're the first one to read and capitalize on a weak signal in the periphery, that can lead to tremendous growth."
George Day, professor of marketing and co-director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School, leads a program session on "Peripheral Vision: Detecting Market Signals." Day says that the best opportunities "have a good balance of risk and reward. We provide a lot of tools that help participants manage risk effectively."
The faculty of Full-Spectrum Innovation stress that the organization aspect in innovation is key. It is less about innovating as an individual and more about creating more "innovation DNA" inside their organizations. Parayre notes that it is particularly valuable for intact teams to attend together. "They go back to the workplace energized, empowered, and speaking the same language. They go back shooting a cannon instead of a BB gun."
Larry Huston, former vice president of innovation at Procter and Gamble, leads a session on how to use his "Connect and Develop" strategy that earned him Fortune's top ranking as the number-one global innovator. Connect and Develop brought billions of new revenue to Procter and Gamble (which now sources 50 percent of the company's new product and service innovations from outside P&G). Huston's article with Nabil Sakkab in Harvard Business Review ("Connect and Develop," March 2006) was among the "most-read" articles of the year. Participants are encouraged to explore potential partnerships that provide open innovation opportunities for their organizations. Listen to Larry Huston on innovative practices at Knowledge@Wharton.
"One of the major reasons companies don't succeed with innovation is that they're really focused on running their current business," observes George Day. "You've got to get to the next client, to deliver on time and on budget." A distinctive feature of the Full-Spectrum Innovation executive education program is its encouragement of a shift in perspective as an integral part of innovation. The program gives participants space away from the demands of the workplace, getting them out of "operating mode" and allowing that shift to occur.
"The executive education program helped me and my company gain a better understanding of how to target innovation resources and improve processes to achieve the most impact," says Stephen Lines, program director for AstraZeneca. "I recommend this outstanding executive education program to anyone interested in innovation," Lines adds. "It instills a grounded view of innovation that goes beyond products and technology into organizational issues plus the design of innovation across our business."
Executive Education at the Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania -- founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school -- is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 10,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 82,000 graduates.
Informed by in-depth, groundbreaking academic research and extensive industry experience, Wharton Executive Education programs can span anywhere from a few days to six weeks or longer. Each executive education program offers a supportive and challenging context where participants gain the skills necessary for their next level of executive development. Participants who come to Wharton from a diverse range of industries engage with faculty who are the most cited, most published faculty of all top-tier business schools. With a profound influence upon global business, Wharton faculty are the sought-after, trusted advisors of corporations and governments worldwide.
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