It pays to identify the trends of the future. Peeking into tomorrow helps you predict the upcoming challenges and opportunities for your business and enables you to plan accordingly.

As ardent fans of new technology and business trends, we’ve been keeping an ear on the ground for what will make it big next year.

Here’s our take on the 6 major trends that’ll transform 2017 and beyond:

Virtual and Augmented Reality Grows Up

Thanks to Pokemon Go and the plethora of VR headsets on the market, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are now the biggest buzzwords in a space that used to be dominated by hardcore gamers and geeks.

There are already several industries adopting VR technology, including education, sports, tourism and healthcare. Businesses are using AR to simulate how furniture and other interior design products look in your home. Some are using it to help you compare different makeup looks on your face live (L’Oréal’s app). Others include it in the design and development processes (Volkswagen AR).

AR/VR is also opening up new possibilities in healthcare — allowing for more precise and effective training, testing and maintenance of devices, and even the treatment of PTSD and chronic pain.

The AR/VR movement will gain more steam in 2017 as more and more companies discover the power of the technology. The International Data Corporation is already predicting a compound annual growth of 180%.

 

The Internet of Things Accelerates

internet of things

The Internet of Things simply refers to smart devices that can connect to the internet and talk to each other.

You’ve probably heard of self-stocking refrigerators that ensures you never run out of eggs and beer. How about alarm clocks that trigger your coffee pot to start running so you get hot coffee before you rush to work? Or perhaps the set of keys that never gets lost because it’s connected to the cloud via sensors.

Without a doubt, the IoT is definitely exciting for the consumer.

When you bring the IoT into businesses however, it gets a whole lot more interesting. It essentially changes the entire structure of a traditional business.

Let’s take a clothing brand for example.

The clothes are manufactured in a smart factory that runs on a connected, inter-operating system. This system communicates seamlessly, eliminating the need for line workers. The real time insights collected from the system will then be used to keep up with system maintenance, control costs and increase yield.

Smart forklifts in warehouses then move these crates of clothing to the autonomous trucks, which ships it to the stores — human-free.

In the stores, the IoT is used in smart shelves to keep track of stock. Staff will no longer have to manage inventory manually. It will collect insights which gives the retailer an overall view on the business. Through the data, they will see who their customers are, how their products are performing, and how they can formulate new products and optimize store layout.

While the IoT is still in its early days, we foresee it accelerating at breakneck speed in the coming year.

 

Clean Energy Goes Mainstream

tesla solar

Tesla’s new solar roof that actually looks sleek and sexy.

Renewable energy has been on everyone’s agenda for a while now, but it will really take off in 2017 as clean energy gets increasingly competitive in its pricing.

Previously seen as something only the privileged can afford, renewable energy no longer comes with a big price tag. Prices have fallen dramatically in just the last few years and is already on par with fossil fuel prices in many countries.

With all the investments poured into clean energy products and projects, global investments in clean energy reached a record high of $286 billion in 2015, and is set to grow as the industry matures.

You can expect even more advanced tech and lower prices as the renewable energy industry scales up.

 

The World Will Begin Moving Towards Universal Basic Income

Image credit: scottpickard.com

A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is basically a concept that every citizen will receive money that covers basic necessities like food, accommodation and clothing, no strings attached.

The idea is that once you no longer have to worry about having food on the table and a roof over your head, you’ll be free to pursue things that really matter to you.

This freedom paves the way to more creativity and innovation, as entrepreneurs will be less afraid of taking bigger risks in their ventures because there is a safety net, and people will be happy to work in industries not incentivized by current markets.

As robots begin replacing more and more jobs in the very near future, one plausible solution would be the UBI. It’ll replace the complex conditional welfare systems to reduce poverty and encourage productivity. It’s garnered support from economists, financial experts, governments and tech billionaires like Elon Musk, and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.

Some countries are already running pilot UBI projects, from Finland to Canada.

 

Chatbots Will Transform the Way Businesses Interact

We’re already using chatbots today — Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or IBM’s Watson. While they’re fun to have, they aren’t exactly revolutionary.

The next generation of chatbots however, will fundamentally change how we interact with computers. Weaving in sophisticated AI technology like deep learning and neural networks, chatbots will understand us better and produce more sophisticated solutions and responses.

As chatbots get more sophisticated, a whole new realm of possibilities open up for businesses – you can automate several services, run customer service 24/7, understanding what the customer wants is as easy as collecting chat data, and several services can be automated.

Companies are all jumping on the chatbot bandwagon, with Facebook, Microsoft, Hipmunk, Slack and Kik launching their own bot platforms. Research firm Gartner predicts that only 1/3 of customer service interactions will require human interaction by 2017.

Traditional R&D Evolves

X2 Innovation Center is one of the most successful centers of its kind in Norway — accelerating the rate established Norwegian companies are launching new growth ventures.

Big companies pump money into R&D to create new technology and uncover new knowledge, but research has shown that cash spent on R&D alone isn’t enough for big innovation successes.

The traditional R&D model gives a company new technology, but there’s no guarantee that this new technology will translate to market success.

Companies today need to work cohesively with new innovation frameworks and processes. This helps uncover sustainable and commercially viable business models and ultimately bring in the big bucks.

We’re seeing more and more companies that traditionally depend on R&D like Pfizer forming new innovation processes for a more well-rounded approach. And that is only set to grow.

Expect more and more innovation centers and labs to pop up in 2017 and beyond.

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Engage//Innovate’s workshops have helped teams from Reckitt Benckiser, Airbus, LEGO and many more. Our new strategy tools are used by over 100 growth organizations around the world.

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Add your voice to the conversation. What trends do you predict for 2017?

2016 has been a massive year for innovation. We’re seeing bigger shifts towards clean energy, bolder strides in healthcare innovation, plus lots of really cool stuff that is bound to improve lives in one way or another.

Here’re 18 of our favorite innovations of 2016, in no particular order:

1. The World’s First Robot Lawyer

Image credit: Business Insider

Image credit: Business Insider

Created by 19-year old Joshua Browder, DoNotPay is a “robot lawyer” that helps you appeal your parking fines in London and New York. It can also deal with irresponsible landlords (in the UK) and help you get compensated from delayed flights or late trains in the EU. The robot lawyer uses chatbot technology to ask you questions and determine if you have a case, then directs you to the appropriate steps. It can even draft out legal letters for you.

Why it’s awesome: Since its advent, the robot lawyer has overturned more than 175,000 parking tickets ($5 million worth!), which would’ve been unjustly paid for. Plus, it’s been built by a teenager. We love kids daring to explore their capabilities.

Learn more about DoNotPay here.

 

2. Amazon Go – food shopping with no lines

Imagine going to a store, picking up whatever you want and just leaving without having to play the checkout line roulette. That’s basically the concept of Amazon Go, which will launch to the public in early 2017.

You use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take what you want, and walk out. The store uses what Amazon calls the “Just Walk Out” technology. It’s essentially the same type of tech used by self-driving cars — computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning. The tech will sense which items you’ve plucked from the shelves, charge your Amazon account accordingly, and then send you a receipt.

Why it’s awesome: Amazon Go gives a glimpse into the future of retail — incredibly convenient and line-free. If we go by Amazon’s track record, Amazon Go’s technology could very well disrupt the existing landscape of food shopping.

Learn more about Amazon Go here.

 

3. The Orange Sweet Potato — One of the Most Innovative Ways to Feed the Planet

Image credit: Harvest Plus

Image credit: Harvest Plus

About 2 billion people in the world don’t get enough essential vitamins and minerals in their diet. And HarvestPlus is on a mission to change that. Using a process called biofortification, they create micronutrient-rich crop produced using conventional plant breeding methods. The results include the vitamin A-fortified sweet potato, iron-fortified beans, beta-carotene fortified cassava and many more.

Why it’s awesome: The Orange Sweet Potato was referred to as “one of the most innovative approaches to feeding the planet” by the US government. It has won the prestigious World Food Prize and is now being planted and consumed by over 126,000 households in Uganda alone.

Read more about HarvestPlus here.

 

4. The plane that flew around the world without a drop of fuel

Source: solarimpulse.com

Image Credit: Solar Impulse

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Abu Dhabi in July this year after flying 40,000km over the course of 15 months, powered solely by the energy of the sun. The adventure began in Switzerland, when Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg decided to explore their vision of clean tech helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Why it’s awesome: Besides breaking several world records, it’s a historic journey that has proven how possible it is to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, even for planes.

Read more about Solar Impulse here.

 

5. SpaceX’s Reusable Rockets

Rockets cost a load of money to build (over $60 million) and can be used only once. Imagine building something for $60 million to transport a satellite into space once, and then throwing it away. That’s a massive waste of money, which is why Elon Musk’s SpaceX is developing the reusable rocket.

This year SpaceX made history for reusable rockets, successfully landing its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship to be refurbished and reused. Previous water landing attempts had ended explosively, so this was definitely something to celebrate.

Why it’s awesome: Once fulled developed, reusable rockets will drastically reduce costs of space access — by as much as a factor of a hundred.

Learn more about SpaceX here.

 

6. PlayStation VR

The PlayStation VR is Sony’s contender in the virtual reality headset race. We dare say that it is a winner thanks to its competitive price point. Its compatibility with the PlayStation 4 also essentially opens up the massive existing user base as potential customers.

Why it’s awesome: It basically brings quality VR to the mass market at a very competitive price compared to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (which requires you to fork out for a powerful, and expensive gaming PC). While its specs are slightly less impressive than its rivals, users report that the comfortable gaming experience and quality is top notch.

Learn more about the PlayStation VR.

 

7. A “Kindle” for the blind

Source: gineersnow.com

Source: gineersnow.com

Refreshable braille displays already exist, but they can usually only manage one line of text. This makes reading a slow and arduous process for the visually impaired, and limits the type of information it can display. A one-liner can’t handle graphs, spreadsheets or music because those are displayed spatially.

To address this problem, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a refreshable braille tablet that can display full pages at once.

Hailed the Holy Braille, the tablet is built upon the pneumatic system. It uses either air or fluid to push up small plastic pins that form braille letters. The Holy Braille is one of ten Popular Science 2016 Invention Awards winners.

Why it’s awesome: One word — price. While the technology for full-page braille displays exist, the cost to produce them would be prohibitive, potentially costing upwards of $55,000 per device. The team at the University of Michigan hopes to lower the cost of through the use of microfluidics which is much cheaper to produce, and predicts a price between $1,000 – $2,000.

Learn more about the Holy Braille here.

 

8. Pokemon Go

Image credit: mobipicker.com

Image credit: mobipicker.com

In less than a month from its launch in July this year, Pokemon Go had already amassed 75 million downloads (it’s now standing at 500 million downloads). It took the app only 13 hours to reach the top of the highest grossing app chart in the US. And right now it’s the biggest US mobile game of all time, with 23 million daily users. [Sources 1, 2]

Why it’s awesome: Pokemon Go basically brought Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality to the masses, concepts previously only geeks and industry insiders were privy to. It’s built upon an existing game by Niantic called Ingress, which was popular among some but never truly caught on worldwide. Pokemon Go is an amazing example of the kind of magic that can happen when you fuse together a large company (Nintendo) and a startup (Niantic).

Download Pokemon Go here.

 

9. A digital tablet that feels and works exactly like paper — only better

reMarkable takes e-reader technology up a notch — delivering a realistic paper-like experience for people who love to see their thoughts visualized. Using what they call the CANVAS technology, the reMarkable tablet can be used exactly like how you would a notebook, a sketchbook, a printed document or just scraps of paper. You can take notes, scribble and doodle to your heart’s delight without generating disorganized piles of physical documents. All your scribblings are synced to the cloud in real time, making it a great tool for collaboration with no worries of lost notes. You can load e-books, PowerPoint presentations and documents onto it, organize your notes and sketches into different note- and sketchbooks,

Why it’s awesome: Everything else in the market that has attempted to replicate real paper has either flopped or are ridden with kinks. We’re super excited to seeing what its Norwegian creators tout as the world’s fastest digital paper.

Learn more about reMarkable here.

 

10. The factory that’ll dramatically lower the cost of solar energy

Image credit: MIT Technology Review

Image credit: MIT Technology Review

Tesla’s sister company SolarCity opened the GigaFactory this year. It spans 27 acres, making it the biggest of its kind in North America.

Once complete, the GigaFactory will produce 10,000 solar panels daily, equivalent to one gigawatt of solar power annually. These panels are highly efficient and are made using a simplified, low-cost manufacturing process.

Why it’s awesome: Solar energy used to come at a much higher cost. The Gigafactory, when complete and producing at maximum capacity, will be able to lower costs to the point where solar plus batteries is cheaper than fossil fuels.

Learn more about SolarCity here.

 

11. The Brain Implant that Communicates Wirelessly

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that destroys the nerve cells which controls your muscles. This eventually leads to a loss of mobility, speech, and even the ability to breathe without aid. ALS patients often use an eye-tracking device to communicate, unfortunately 1 in 3 loses the ability to move their eyes.

While brain-computer interfaces exist, they need re-calibrating by a team of engineers on a daily basis. Many are so complex they cannot work wirelessly.

As a result, the team at the Brain Center of University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands has developed a simple, inexpensive device that can be used at home, without the need for constant recalibration.

Why it’s awesome: HB, a woman with ALS, was the first to test out this device and have the system implanted. While it works slower than her eye tracker, the device can be used outdoors unlike the eye tracker which is sensitive to light. This has given her confidence to go outside and travel.

Learn more about the brain implant here.

 

12. Chevrolet Bolt – The First Mass Market Electric Car

chevrolet-bolt

Electric cars have been around for decades, but buyers have always had to worry about the range they can go before running out of juice. That was until the Tesla hit the market with a range of 208 miles. However, Teslas also come at a pretty hefty price tag, which limits its mass market appeal.

The Chevrolet Bolt offers an EPA of 238 miles (383km) per charge, surpassing the Tesla Model 3 by 23 miles. It doesn’t hurt that it comes at a very attractive price of $37,500 ($30,000 post federal tax incentives).

The Chevy Bolt comes equipped with all the tech you’d expect from an electric car — a 10.2-inch touchscreen, an electronic precision shift, as well as a super spacious, functional interior.

Why it’s awesome: Being the industry’s first affordable, long-range electric vehicle, the Chevy Bolt is General Motor’s big bet on its future in a world rapidly heading towards renewable, clean energy. Besides its price and battery range, the Chevy Bolt also has an innovative braking system which extends the car’s battery life by another 5%. It has been named the 2017 Car of the Year by Motor Trend as well as Green Car of the Year by the Green Car Journal.

Learn more about the Chevrolet Bolt here.

 

13. The bin that works 24/7 to clean the ocean

seabin

About 7 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, making up 75% of all marine debris. Marine plastic pollution has impacted at least 267 species worldwide and is set to get worse.

The plastic pollution is so overwhelming that a report published earlier this year estimates the amount of plastic will outweigh the fish by 2050.

To tackle the problem, two Australians have cooked up a first-of-its-kind bin that floats about, sucking up rubbish and debris. Designed to be used around marinas, ports, harbors, and yacht clubs, the Seabin will attack the trash brought in by the wind and currents.

Why it’s awesome: The current solution to trash around the marinas is expensive and labour-intensive. The Seabin does a better job at a much lower price point, does not take much to maintain and works 24/7. While it currently runs on electricity, the Seabin team is in the process of developing solar-powered Seabins, so they’re already innovating their innovation!

Learn more about the Seabin project here.

 

14. Uber’s self-driving delivery truck

uber-self-driving-truck

70% of the US’s freight is dealt with by the trucking industry, and they’re desperate for more drivers. According to the American Trucking Association, the current shortage of truck drivers stands at 48,000, with the figure possibly leaping to 175,000 by 2024.

In other words, there’s no better time for Uber-acquired Otto to launch its self-driving trucks. On October 20, Otto’s self-driving 18-wheeler tractor trailer drove 50,000 cans of Budweiser beer over 100 miles (160km) without human intervention.

Why it’s awesome: While the technology is still in its early days and cannot deal with tricky city environments, its hardware is tuned for the consistent patterns of highway driving. In a country where 430,000 truck crashes occurred just last year, self-driving trucks can definitely play a role in making highways safer.

Learn more about Otto here.

15. A farm powered by seawater and sunlight

In South Australia where the desert climate disagrees with conventional agriculture, farmers needed to think different. Sundrop Farms is the first in the world to utilize solar energy and desalinated seawater to grow their 180,000 tomato plants.

Why it’s awesome: By skipping soil, pesticides, fossil fuels and groundwater, the farm demonstrates how it is entirely possible to grow food in an eco-friendly, sustainable manner.

Learn more about Sundrop Farms here.

 

16. The world’s first touch-free smartphone

Image credit: wired.com

Image credit: wired.com

Israel’s Sesame Phone is controlled purely by head movements and gestures — making it possible for disabled people to call someone, send a text, surf the web and even play apps without the need for help.

The Sesame Phone tracks the user’s head movements through the built-in, front-facing camera on the phone. It then combines them with computer vision algorithms to create a cursor that appears on the screen of the phone. This enables users to do anything one might do with one finger on the screen. Integrated voice control wakes the phone up to start tracking you, so it’s truly touch-less.

Why it’s awesome: Sesame Enable’s technology gives an entire segment of society in Israel the ability to do what we take for granted everyday — go digital. It also grants them the freedom of independence and privacy, something very few disabled people enjoy.

Learn more about Sesame Enable here.

 

17. A stethoscope you ingest

rd100_enterophone

The Enterophone is a pill that can monitor your vital signs once you have ingested it. It uses special microphones to pick up sounds of your heart and lungs while a tiny thermometer measures your core body temperature.

It’s the only ingestible pill that tracks all three vital signs at once, all from within the gastrointestinal tract. Developed by a biomedical engineer at Harvard Medical School and a biomaterials scientist at MIT, the Enterophone has been successfully tested on pigs, and is in plans to be tested on humans next.

Why it’s awesome: If trials go well, this pill could make monitoring your vitals a breeze. It’ll make it easier to assess trauma patients, monitor soldiers in the field, perform long-term evaluation of patients with chronic illnesses, or improve training for professional and amateur athletes, according to the researchers.

Learn more about the Enterophone here.

 

18. The font that people with dyslexia can read without struggling

dyslexie-font-728x592

One in five people have difficulty reading, not because they don’t know how to, but because they suffer from dyslexia. People with dyslexia find it difficult to process graphic symbols, which makes reading and deciphering words a huge chore.

The Dyslexie font was created so that each letter is distinct and easier to recognize for those with dyslexia. It has recently raised a round of money via Kickstarter for a PDF converter that changes any typeface into the Dyslexie font.

Why it’s awesome: It’s hard imagining how something as small as a font can change the world for the better. But it can. Schools are using the Dyslexie font to help children with dyslexia learn better with minimal frustrations. Businesses are using the font to increase productivity and decrease errors in the workplace. There are even some publishers using the font to increase accessibility and encourage reading among those with dyslexia.

Learn more about the Dyslexie font here.

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Make innovation happen in your own company.

Learn the strategy tools already used by 100+ top global companies to develop new revenue-creating business models — fast.

strategytoolsworldtour

When we talk to our clients and workshop participants, most of them have some form of innovation initiative in place. Some have already begun pouring funding into R&D, while others have trained teams and set up new innovation processes.

However, achieving your innovation objectives is more than just putting together ideas and running with them. You first need a key element in place to see it to success — a clearly defined innovation strategy.

Unfortunately, this is something most firms overlook, according to innovation and competitive strategy expert Gary Pisano.

Fortify your innovation strategy by answering these 3 questions:

1. Are our objectives aligned?

The best strategies are usually based upon a clear objective, where vague statements like “we need to innovate now because everyone else is innovating,” or “we need to innovate so we can grow” have no place.

First, it’s important to be aligned on which type of innovation you are looking at.

There are 3 types of innovation:

  1. Efficiency-based innovation — where you focus on cutting costs, to do more with the same capital, usually a LEAN process, where you are fine-tuning and downsizing.
  2. Performance improving innovation — where you upgrade your existing products and services.
  3. Market-creating innovations — creating entire new business models, serving entirely new customers, puts your capital to use and creates the most value from a shareholder perspective.

Ask your team: what does “market-creating innovations” mean to our company?

2. Do we have the Money, Structure and Mandate in place?

There are 3,000 ideas for every one that makes it to market. The problem isn’t the idea. The problem is the system, processes, methods, tools, and resource allocation. If any of these are not in place, you are effectively killing off the ideas as they move down the pipeline.

In our research over the past 5 years, we realized that most innovation strategies that succeed are built upon the holy trinity of Money, Structure and Mandate.

Even if your ideas are brilliant, you will need the money (funding), structure (trained teams and a conducive corporate structure), and the mandate (support from the higher ups) to secure a successful transformation.

Here’s a quick score sheet from the Transformation Architecture strategy tool to help identify where you stand before you hit go. The higher your score, the better your chances at success.

Transformation Architecture

 

3. What are my next steps if some/none of them are in place?

Now comes the real work. It’s easy if you’ve got the entire package, from funding for new ideas and ventures, trained departments to be responsible for these new ventures, to the thumbs-up from the Board of Directors and top management.

It’s just a tad more challenging if you’re lacking an ingredient or two.

So where should you start? By asking the right questions.

Asking questions will help uncover a framework to start working with, so you can get the Money, Structure and Mandate set up for maximum transformation success.

What are the right questions to ask? Easy. They’re all in the free Transformation Architecture strategy tool that you can download by clicking the button below.

To get a more in-depth understanding of how the tool came about, you might want to take a peek at our lead facilitator Christian Rangen explaining the Transformation Architecture to workshop participants:

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Join the Strategy Tools World Tour 2017

Engage // Innovate’s strategy tools for business model innovation have been used by top innovative companies like LEGO, Reckitt Benckiser, PWC and many more.

Generate new revenue-creating business models with our strategy tools in a 2-day in-house workshop, anywhere in the world. Learn more or sign up at strategytoolsworldtour.com.

You’ve probably had an idea or two that was shot down by those around you. Too unrealistic. Doesn’t suit the market. Too much work to be feasible. Too “out-of-the-box”.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had second, or maybe even third thoughts about our brilliant plans for the future. But if there’s anything to be learned from history, it’s to never let the doubters and naysayers get you down.

If you believe enough in your idea and work at it, you will definitely make it a reality in the future. Good luck, and stick to it!

a-brief-history-of-doubters-infographic

What quotes from your doubters would you like to change in the future? Let us know in the comments below, and prove them wrong! 

 

Over at Engage//Innovate — a strategy and consulting firm, we view the challenges of the entrepreneurial society through the prism of the Norwegian oil and gas predicament.

Over the past 40 years, oil and gas has played a large role in the strong growth of our economy. About a quarter of our entire GDP is tied to oil and gas extraction.

Considering its significance to the Norwegian economy, the structural decline of the oil and gas industry which began in 2014, has spurred the government and businesses alike to rethink the state of entrepreneurial policies, politics and corporate ventures.

Building Transformational Capacities

Few could claim any reasonable sustainable solutions to the challenges ahead, and many have tried to address them in a very simplistic manner.

For instance, the Norwegian government — through overly-simplistic budgetary policies — have swept aside the complexity inherent to a global economy by simply putting more money on the table.

Drucker would have said “governments were unable to play such a role in a rapidly changing environment of globalization, digitization and accelerating disruption.”

Historically operating in a local marketplace, the companies across the oil and gas value chain within the original firm have suffered greatly in the face of rapid change due to their inherent corporate and monopolistic behavior.

Building transformational capacities in a global entrepreneurial economy is still a work-in-need-of-great progress.

Innovating for PR

While one could reasonably argue that creating space mining adventures, sub-sea factories, floating hotels and solar plants on water all indicate a corporate behavior for innovation, in reality these are little more than mere PR stunts.

The big question that arises is “what is truly the role of the state vs the entrepreneur in the face of a structurally declining oil and gas industry?”

Equally important is the regulatory intervention played by the state, through economical policies which protect the past rather than help companies think beyond tomorrow.

In a nation state where the job growth over the past 4 years has mostly been from the public sector, little evidence except for PR stunts support the notion of a truly entrepreneurial society.

The Future of the Norwegian Economy

Looking at today’s market capitalization of Tesla vs Statoil, one can clearly tell where the investors are placing the future.

In this age of digitally transparent and connected marketplaces, governments should refrain from protecting the past and instead let Schumpeter’s notion of destruction run rampant. Only then can our national economy, arising from the age of the vikings, truly grasp the entrepreneurial society.

We greatly fear that should civil and political leadership fail at their significant tasks, we will be left with the society in upheaval and disturbingly receptive to populism politics.

In the face of these challenges, the overarching priority for any executive team should not primarily be serving shareholder value, but truly taking a long-term view and build deep, lasting, transformational capacities.

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Read next:
Transforming a Nation: How We Helped Companies Build New Growth Ventures in Days, Not Years

In your latest move to drive innovation in your company, you’ve probably kick-started a channel for new innovations and have collected hundreds of ideas. You’ve probably had a few meetings to discuss and review these ideas and maybe even a rough action plan drawn up.

Everyone is fired up, but now is when the real work begins.

Intent alone is not enough to grow a great idea into a solid new business model that is sustainable and profitable. You need the right people, right implementation and right tools. Most importantly, you have to be willing to pull up your sleeves and do the grunt work of seeing it through.

These 9 steps outline how you can make innovation happen:

how to make innovation happen: an infographic

The strategy tools for business model innovation discussed in the infographic can be downloaded for free on strategytools.io.

Text content an excerpt from our book Dream Bigger.

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What are your biggest difficulties when it comes to implementing innovation? Join the conversation in the comments section below: