It’s not the idea. It’s the team.
When most people think about innovation labs. They focus on the ideas.
But as industry insiders will tell you.
It’s really not about the ideas. The ideas come and go.
What matters is the team. How teams are built, their composition, their operating model, their process, their funding, etc. is what makes the difference.
To help us figure out how to build a high-performing innovation team across multiple industries, I interviewed Aviad Stein, Global Head of Digital and Innovation at Broadridge.
Aviad Stein, is currently the Global Head of Digital and Innovation at Broadridge, where he is responsible for building the next generation of Web 3.0 and Digital Assets products as well as other investor communications products and services.
He has deep experience in building innovation labs, incubators, and accelerators across multiple industries, including financial services, retail, and social media. He has a proven track record of developing innovative growth strategies, product offerings, and new business development that drive top-line revenue.
What follows below is a condensed and lightly edited version of our interview.
Aviad it is finally nice to have you as a guest. Let’s start with the basics. How do you define a high-performing innovation team?
Aviad Stein: Mustafa good to be here. I have been looking forward to it.
For me, a high-performing innovation team is a team that really focuses on collaboration, innovation, and the ability to drive both change and significant results.
Allow me to unpack that a bit more. A high-performing team understands exactly the business objectives. One that is able to generate ideas to support that and be able to demonstrate through experimentation, product development, working with clients, and internally.
So that they can come up with products and solutions that will address those business objectives.
Allow me to dig deeper. Can you give some examples of where you build these teams? And what did your teams end up building?
AS: Yeah, definitely. So as you know, I have had the fortune of building these teams in various industries.
I have built innovation teams at Tumblr, Nordstrom, Bloomberg, Dun and Bradstreet, and most recently with Broadridge Financial.
At Nordstrom, the lab was created to figure out how to do e-commerce for a large established luxury brand. This was back in 2007 – 2008 when e-commerce was still new.
At Bloomberg, the team was trying to develop a new direct-to-consumer digital product ecosystem by leveraging both the exclusive and aggregated content Bloomberg produced. We have created over 25 global and localized web, mobile, smart TVs, and connected devices applications using tv, video, and audio segments and by tying them back to our core financial footprint in the marketplace. Most notable applications are still among the top in the finance category including Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, Businessweek, etc.
At D&B, the lab was created to evolve and future-proof the footprint of the business as a leader in the data and analytics space including the development of new products and business lines focused directly on business professionals such as advisors, account managers, and sales reps across firms and industries. We have validated and built a whole POC process by ideating across some of our loyal clients and delivering substantial products that enhanced productivity, reduced overhead cost, and increased high-value market positioning for them and for D&B.
And right now at Broadridge, we are doing a lot with web3, digital assets, and blockchain. Broadridge is well posited to take the lead in several key areas in the space including the creation of a regulatory framework and disclosures for digital assets and beyond, enhancing the disjointed user experience across wallets, exchanges, and custody providers, identity as a service and above all leveraging blockchain technology for the creation of new product, services, and solutions across industries including banks, brokers, insurance, healthcare, and other providers. It is an exciting time for us to dive into the most revolutionized and disruptive topic these days that is shaping the way every company across the globe will be developing and serving the needs of their clients and we are in a great position to take the lead of many of the critical pieces in that web2 to 3 journeys.
That is quite an impressive set of experiences. I am curious, was there anything in common when you were trying to build the lab?
AS: Yes, quite a few things in fact. That was really industry agnostic.
First, regardless of industry executive buy-in was absolutely critical. Without that, it was almost impossible to get a lab started and running. If the leaders did not get it, it was pretty much game over before it even began. Luckily for me, most of the teams that I lead had that executive buy-in.
Second, the process of innovation was the same. Does not matter if you were at Tumbler, retail, or financial services. The process of focusing on business objectives, using design thinking, incorporating customer feedback, prototyping, and experimenting. All of it was basically the same. It did not matter what industry it was.
Third, is recruiting. Does not matter where you are, finding people who understand innovation and product is extremely hard. There are just not that many people around who know this stuff. And so then you need to invest in training and upskilling them.
Interesting. Were there certain industries where innovation was harder than others?
AS: Innovation is always hard. That goes without saying.
But I have noticed that B2B companies have a much harder time adopting some innovation practices than B2C companies.
Maybe it’s because B2C organizations feel the pain more or have more challenging competitors or demanding customers. But because they are in this situation, they know they have to change and are more ready to adopt new ways of doing things.
B2B organizations require a bit more time. Don’t get me wrong. They know they have to change because the revenue is tied to a sales force. Not a consumer of SaaS products. They need a bit more convincing.
That is a great insight between B2B and B2C companies. And you are right of course, getting buy-in from B2B executives is always harder.
If you had to dig deeper. Were there certain prerequisites at the organization that make innovation just a little bit easier?
AS: Well, as I said, executive buy-in is an absolute must.
But beyond that, the organizations that had their development process figured out fared a whole lot better.
Innovation was a lot easier if the company had already implemented agile and flexible architecture (cloud, APIs, etc.). Having this really helped with the delivery of the product, it made rapid prototyping, experimentation, and iteration all that much easier.
After all, what is the point of coming up with a valid idea if it takes the organization years to build something? I am not sure an innovation lab can survive that.
Agreed. Let me take this in a different direction. Do you personally use any metrics or KPIs to measure team performance?
AS: There are several that we use. Again it really depends on the organization and the type of innovation we are pursuing.
But the handful of metrics I look at is first, really about, does the team understand the business metrics. Can they demonstrate that? Can they link their activities to that? Because that is really what matters
Second, is how many experiments they run per quarter. How many users did they interact/interview with? How big was their client pool for experimentation
The third was how long it took to validate an idea. At the lab, we want to be very quick about which ideas to pursue and which ideas to not. So lead time is always important.
And last, there are delivery metrics that you are probably familiar with. Like development cycle time, error rates, sprints, etc.
Great. One last question. If somebody wanted to follow your path and build their own innovation team, what are the two or three things that you would recommend that they do?
AS: It’s a good question. There are two things that come to mind.
First and foremost, find out if the organization has an appetite for innovation. What is the organization’s maturity? Understanding the organization’s ability to experiment, is probably the most critical one.
And this includes everything that we have been talking about. Including, having executive buy-in, having the right skills and capabilities, having the suitable funding model, and having the right development or delivery model, the right technology, and the right process. All of that is critical.
Second, is a bit of a nuance from the first. But is the organization ok driving innovation that is outside of the existing LOB?
I mean the organization can have all the right stuff, but if the business leaders are not comfortable with someone else leading the innovation. Then we have a problem.
And for that to happen, the lab has to have the right mandate and space to innovate. In many ways, you are a disruptor of the status quo. So you need the mandate to disrupt. In some cases that may mean even a separate P&L or management chain. Just so that it can insulate you from the “business as normal”.
Now, to clarify, the business has to be involved to guide you toward the top priorities. But after that, you need to have the freedom to innovate. And once the idea has been proven out then the business can build it or scale it. Or we can. That depends from organization to organization. But freedom and space are very important.
Aviad, you make such a good point. I think having a space where you can disrupt is so important. And all too often I see business units trying to do innovation within. And the minute it starts to challenge the status quo, it is squashed.
AS: Yes….same here. I have seen it happen way too many times.
Well, thanks for joining us today. This has been such a great talk. And thanks for being patient. I am so glad we finally got to do this.
AS: Mustafa, thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.
