By Tristan Kromer
CEO & Founder of Kromatic
We’re done with the pandemic! Or are we?
Despite some semblance of normalcy, economic uncertainty is as high as ever.
Interest rates are going up and once reliable macroeconomic indicators have been stubbornly refusing to predict what will happen next. Will we have a recession? Will we have a soft-landing? Will we have an unexpected boom? Can startups get funded?
When the situation is volatile, our instinct is to hoard our cash and bury the gold in the backyard. But this is the time when savvy investors are making big moves and smart corporations are buying up innovative startups cheaply while they can’t get VC funding.
Innovation teams who are just twiddling their thumbs waiting for our new AI overlords to get smart enough to tell us what to do will be defunded.
With risk, there is opportunity, and companies who can afford to invest will reap the rewards.
Innovation teams can use this time to pursue big ideas with little cash if they can focus their resources on a clear roadmap which is aligned with the corporate strategy.
If your company has no strategy, time to take the reins and create one yourself.
Look for the trends, look for the gaps in your corporate silos. Where the trends intersect with an organizational blindspot – there is an opportunity for your innovation team to prove their worth and justify their budget.
We know what the trends are: decentralization, robotics, AI, climate change, socioeconomic upheaval, migration and more. Use that foresight in combination with an understanding of your organization’s resources and structure to find the blindspots that are vulnerable to those trends.
Business-as-usual won’t cut it. Innovation teams that can’t roll up their sleeves, get involved in the strategic discussion, and propose a clear path forward will find their budgets slashed and their mandate ultimately handed over to the learning and development team.
Go innovate!