The need of innovation and knowledge as the most valuable asset in the process

Give your Company 
a KIC
Knowledge
Innovation
Change boost
By giving your company a
IknowiT
.by

Even though there is less game changing invention according to Robert
Gordon, there is much going on about incremental innovation, improving
existing product by adding features or miniaturising them. As a result
product half life and cycle times are shortening as if launching new
products seems to be an olympic discipline. Although every generation
had the impression the times they live in were quicker paced than those of
their parents we want to look at the issue and what is changing, but also
what is needed to be able to react, to get our teams and organisations in
gear.
Market Pressure - 3
Where innovation happens - 12
Is the startup the holy grail of innovation?
Why to cultivate Learning Resources - 20
Build a Corporate Learning and Innovation Capacity - 31
Open up to and interact with the environment, exercise empathy and build
an infrastructure
How to apply Organisation Innovation and Change needs - 50
Link to corporate strategy
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2
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324461604578191781756437940
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the
Western World). 2016, Princeton University Press.
A lot of attention is given to the need for innovation, the characteristics of
innovation and the innovation process. Also, an infrastructure for
innovation is to be laid out. Depending on the path taken, it impacts
corporate strategy in a certain way. A multitude of elements indicate the
importance of availability of knowledge. Increasing education levels signal
that more jobs are intellectually based. Shorter cycle times indicate that
what is learned is valuable for even a shorter time. Education on the job,
intellectual versatility and multi-discipline solutions require more stress on
skills and attitude. The ability to learn quickly, exchange views and
generate ideas and solutions in a social context using digital platforms is a
key element for adapting to the (near) future.

Banks were once seen as the most stable organisations by consumers, investors and shareholders. The banking
crisis of 2008 proved this stability lower than perceived. A number of established brands and financial institutions
disappeared or had to reform. Others required a bail out by their respective governments or were sold out to other
more stable companies.
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its
stock, and devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provided an emergency loan to Bear
Stearns to try to avert a sudden collapse of the company. Bear Stearns was sold to JP Morgan Chase, and stopped using the brand name in January 2010.
Merrill Lynch & Co. was acquired by the Bank of America on September 14, 2008, with completion in January 2009.
In Europe similar events occurred. In the Benelux, the Franco-Belgian financial institution Dexia received taxpayer bailouts in 2008. Eventually the retail banking
activities were rebranded Belfius. Fortis Bank was broken up after having critical difficulty financing its part of a joint acquisition of ABN AMRO. In October 2008
Dutch government bought Fortis Bank Nederland, Fortis Verzekeringen Nederland and Fortis Corporate Insurance as well as the retail activities of ABN AMRO.
The Belgian government took over Fortis Bank Belgium. Shortly there after BNP Paribas took a majority stake in Fortis.
The major international Icelandic bank Kaupthing Bank was taken over by the Icelandic government during the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis. Its strong e-
banking international presence and promises for high returns overstretched its capabilities.
In the UK The Royal Bank of Scotland received significant support from the UK government, which, as of August 2015, holds and manages an 73% stake
through UK Financial Investments. In Germany Hypo Real Estate was bailed out by the Bundesbank and other German banks in October 2008.
Even before the crisis the standard banking channel model, connecting with customers via a well spread network
of branch offices, came under pressure. Reduction of a number of branch offices sat in. Increasing importance
was attached, first to in office ATM’s enhanced to self banking terminals and then to internet banking solutions.
Currently pressure is on to extend to a mobile customer experience, which also applies to payment methods that
will most certainly move away from currently known cash and card (credit and debit). Near field and smart phone
technology will take a centre spot in payment.
Stable & Secure - Forget it …
Banking - Finance
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Telecommunications as a new market is much more in tune with the speed of evolution. The sector experienced a
shift from its long standing traditional services over land lines to mobile telephony. The next shift, to become a mobile
data communication provider, has started.
In their short existence suppliers of mobile phones experienced major change and turbulence.
Nokia was the major supplier of handhelds to the market in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century. They were considered the standard or reference in the
segment. Volume as indicator of success and longevity is proving to lose it’s importance. Nokia’s mobile division — on the verge of failure — was sold to Microsoft in
2013.
Being a technology forerunner cannot guarantee a long term competitive advantage, certainly not in a fast evolving
commodity market such as telecommunications. Palm and Blackberry prove this. They faded away. The Palm Treo
was the first popular smartphone on the market, permitting agenda management and writing basic texts. Blackberry
was in the 2000s the mobile of reference for business users, gaining market share in the mobile industry by
concentrating on email. Their safe communication could not hold up to the ease of use of the newer touch screen
smartphones launched by Apple. The iPhone has taken a large part of the market place, although Android phones
have the widest spread.
In this commodity market price pressure is fierce. Currently Chinese brands enter the market place with cheaper
offerings, the majority based on the Android OS.
Telecommunications
5ki
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92%
in 2015
the Apple iPhone had
in 2007 they:
90%
Pipelines, Platforms and the New Rules of Strategy,
HBR, April 2016
had
of the industry’s global profits
Others
46%
Huawei
Apple
14%
Samsung
21%
D
LenovoXiaomi
iOS
14%
Android
83%
Windows Phone
2.6% Blackberry OS 0.3%
Others 0.4%
D
Market share
idc.com

These brands were the reference in photography of my youth. When Polaroid was launched, it was revolutionary.
Digital photography meant the end to a majority of these brands. The until then stable basis of their business (film),
created around 1830, had become obsolete. They disappeared, repositioned on completely different businesses or
had to reinvent themselves, although for some this was very difficult and took a long time.
In the shadows of the big brands and companies, digitalisation of photography changed: taking photos and sharing
certainly became easier. Direct in apparatus feed back, together with dropping prices and diversifying gear made it
easier for the amateur or anybody with a smartphone.
The professional photographer lost his livelihood: his photoshop. Developing film is something from the past. People
buy their camera in a big retail store. Printing pictures is exceptional, often done via specialised website providing
specialty templates for producing entire albums. Gone is the charm of picking out photos and composing your life’s
album. Sharing pictures via online social media for broader or for more restricted audiences has never been easier.
While we had to get together in the past, now we views our friend’s pictures from our own coach using Facebook or
another social platform.
Since its establishment in 1892, Kodak has become a household name and in some language a synonym for a photo camera. Due to the digitalisation of photography
and its slowness in transitioning to this new technology it had to file for Chapter 11 in January 2012. In 2013 it reemerged transformed as a company providing
packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Agfa, the German-Belgian counterpart, went
through a similar evolution, however was earlier to pick up on the digital revolution and could bank on medical imaging that used traditional film for longer than
consumers opting for the cheap potential of digital cameras.
Similar events occurred in the sector of camera makers. All had to transition from film. The Japanese Nikon and Canon are the major players in the market with
product ranges accommodating both amateurs and professionals. Even in niche markets, where the Swedish Hasselblad is active, digitalisation changed the market
completely. Although it was actively researching digital in 2002 it really made the transition on 2004 by acquiring Imacon. This permitted Hasselblad to hold a major
market position in the medium format camera market after 1993 founded Danish leader Phase One.
After having found a way to produce instant pictures, Polaroid had nevertheless to file for Chapter 11 in October 2001. Digital pictures are immediately available as
well, making copies of digital source is even easier.
Photography
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Media
Publishing and media, a sector gone mainstream with mass published news papers in the 19th century feels the
pressure of digital publishing. The ease of setting up a news or information outlet, using shared platforms such as
blogger or Wordpress, makes everybody a potential publisher. Institutional publishers with deep pockets and optimised
logistics feel the pressure of micro publications and micro channels.
The limited cost related to digital publishing and the availability of tools available for anybody, result in the realisation of
the long tail in publishing. Narrow casting to a small target group, with a wealth of choice has become a reality.
With digital publishing, not needing a well developed logistics system, distribution is immediate. Collaborative or social
copy generation sees to it that these channels provide enough volume to be a source of reference. Mechanism of
evaluation and peer review increase quality and trustworthiness, as proven by Wikipedia.
Global TV channels, broadcasting following a ﬁxed planned schedule feel the pressure of on-demand channels, where
consumers decide on when to watch which content. Subscription services alert the audience on availability of new
copy.
The multi-channel media will most probably prevail with a speciﬁc content mix, adapted to medium, rhythm of
publication and target audience. This is illustrated by Newsweek, that relaunched its paper edition as up stream
publication parallel to its mainstream digital issue.
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Automobile
The automobile sector holds a number of strong brands, some with a prestigious ring to their name. They were known to
create good value and margin. In the sector consolidation they were associated with larger groups as Ford or GM. The
credit crisis of 2008 left large groups battling for their existence. They were on the verge of failure; chopping off the
recently acquired fringe brands, changed the landscape. Chinese investors came on board in Volvo, Landrover and
Jaguar. Saab has virtually disappeared and tries to find a new place as manufacturer of electric cars. On the other hand
Fiat, once seen as a less valuable brand and weaker player, was able to acquire Chrysler.
New niche players are able to obtain good brand value. Tesla initially focusing on luxury electric cars now extends to the
mid market. Under pressure of long term durability, critique on the use of fossil fuels and their impact on the
environment, they might prevail. However, Tesla’s position might not be that stable in term. Unexpected parties as
Google and Apple are looking at the automobile manufacturing as a potential diversification.
The self driving car, driven by software, will most probably change the mobility landscape completely. This applies to the
delivery services or taxis but certainly also for general traffic and traffic management. Capacity of rush hour traffic will
change using self driving cars, as well as the number of parking spots in the city.
A self driving car on call using a mobile phone app will not only end the need for drivers but will also push Uber further.
They are however beaten by the MIT spin-out active in Singapore nuTonomy.
Rent and lease companies as they exist now will have to look for more encompassing mobility offerings. As we
understand it now there is a shift from the product, the rented car, permitting the consumer to move around to a mobility
service bringing him from A to B in a very customised, on demand way. In the fringe of these evolutions, what will be the
impact on public transport? How will multi-modal transport facilities evolve?
8ki
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Being a top player is challenging, the importance of scale and high revenue is a
strength. Nevertheless nearly half of Fortune 500 companies dropped from the
list.
Scale, capacity and capability to innovate in large scale products with important
impact on the market is where big companies are in an advantageous position.
They have a big capital backup and marketing capacity to launch new
innovative products.
Small startups realising new ideas or concepts have the advantage of focus,
freshness, agility and motivation but they have to win a position on the market.
As they continue to gain success with the product or service they have
developed and launched they create room for further development of the
product and enhancement of their product portfolio, covering an extending part
of the market and gaining economic traction with a potential to become a new
fortune 500 member. Their disruptive innovation initiatives increasingly overtake
the market.
9ki
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16
of the 100 largest companies
anno 1900 still exist
2000-2010:
46%
of Fortune 500 dropped
of list
only
Who’s still out there
In overview, in the Fortune 500 about half of the companies have disappeared. Over about nearly 120 years, only 16 of
the 100 largest companies still exist. The majority of the once dominating companies were not able to adapt to new
markets, new demand and related organisational requirements. Their market dominance dwindled and they were
replaced by new players, more adapted to the needs of the consumer.
10ki
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11
2010
1965
0 20 40 60 80
75
15
Company Life Span
Not only is the churn within the Fortune 500 list of most successful companies
increasing, their average life is shorter. Fifty years ago, the life expectancy of a
firm in the Fortune 500 was around 75 years. Today, it’s less than 15 years and
declining all the time.
https://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-in-1955-vs-2014-89-are-gone-and-were-all-better-off-because-of-that-dynamic-
creative-destruction/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/19/peggy-noonan-on-steve-jobs-and-why-big-companies-die/#1f7ac5d43e57
Between 1965 and
2012, the topple rate
increased by
40%
Average return on
assets (ROA) has
steadily fallen to
almost
1/4of what it was in 1965
https://hbr.org/2009/07/the-big-shift-measuring-the-forces-of-change

Where Innovation
happens
Innovation is changing

Although every generation has experienced its time as exciting and quicker paced than the period known by their
parents and grand parents, technological and scientific evolution accelerated from the 1950s on. Developments had
their focus waves and resulted in overall wellbeing and the creation of new companies that became household names.
Traditional innovation came through inventors transforming an idea into a radically new product or were concentrated at
corporate R&D departments. They focused on development of new products representing important investments.
Ensuring their effort patents were filed, increasing in volume over time.
Innovation is clearly part of a business strategy based on turning ideas into value. It generally means improved goods,
services or processes. It sustains companies’ profitability and growth.
Workplaces can provide a fertile environment for interactions leading to innovation only when effective management
can ensure that the talents of individuals are being tapped.
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Innovation basis for sustainability
Patent Count per year

U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cbcby.htm
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Traditionally innovation is measured by the number of patent issued 
but they cannot measure the full extent of innovative activities anymore.
http://www.oecd.org/site/innovationstrategy/45392693.pdf

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Austria
CzechRepublic
Iceland(2002-04)
Luxembourg
Ireland
Sweden
Netherlands
Estonia
Chile
Canada(2002-04,
manufacturing)
Norway
Belgium
Mexico(2006-07)
Denmark
Italy
Japan
(1999-2001)
SouthAfrica
(2002-04)
Spain
Australia
(2006-07)
Portugal
UnitedKingdom
Korea(2005-07,
manufacturing)
Innovative firms without R&D Innovative firms with in-house R&D
%
New-to-market product innovators with and without R&D, 2004-06
Measuring Innovation: A New Perspective - OECD © 2010
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United"States"
Australia"
Euro"area"
European"Union"
Belgium"
Germany"
United"Kingdom"
Sweden"
Denmark"
Norway"
France"
Innovation, diversifying sources
Until the global mass penetration of the internet, focus was on products
marketed as mass commodities. Products were launched at their
initiative. Initiative was taken mainly by corporate entities having the
means of funding big research units. Increasingly organisations innovate
without R&D function. R&D budgets shrink, though the rhythm of new
product launches is not slowing down.
Social interaction on the web created new dynamics. It had an impact on
interacting with customers, but recently also on the innovation sourcing
and related management processes.
Increasingly problem solving is crowd sourced. Solutions pop up from
unexpected sources, stressing even more the need for cross-disciplinary
approaches to innovation.
14ki
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Research and development expenditure
(% of GDP)
World Development Indicators
http://www.oecd.org/site/innovationstrategy/measuringinnovationanewperspective-
onlineversion.htm#reaping

Innovation, cross fertilising creativity
0
20
40
60
80
Chile
Estonia
Iceland(2002-04)
Denmark
Sweden
Belgium
CzechRepublic
Netherlands
Norway
Japan(1999-2001)
SouthAfrica(2002-04)
Portugal
UnitedKingdom
Ireland
Luxembourg
Korea(2005-07,
manufacturing)
Italy
Austria
Canada(2002-04,
manufacturing)
Australia(2006-07)
Spain
Collaboration/High R&D Collaboration/Low R&D Collaboration/without R&D%
Regional average of PCT patents with co-inventor(s) by location, 2005-07
Measuring Innovation: A New Perspective - OECD © 2010
15ki
.
http://www.oecd.org/site/innovationstrategy/
measuringinnovationanewperspective-onlineversion.htm#reaping
Innovation is a group effort and does not necessarily happen in
dedicated departments. It can also come from operational
processes where people get together, exchange ideas and
work at a common goal. Collaboration outside a speciﬁc
innovation structure can amount to half, or even more, of the
patent output. Imagine all not patent producing innovative
initiatives going on in organisation.

of organisations have
initiatives to grow via
new products/services
http://www.boardoﬁnnovation.com/2015/12/21/actnow/
of new products
introduced each year fail
95%
49%
of organisations have
initiatives to grow via
reducing costs
29%
success rates for 
intrapraneurship projects  
aiming at innovation:
w
10 to 30%https://hbr.org/2013/11/a-new-model-for-
innovation-in-big-companies/
Even though innovation initiatives may result out of serendipity a lot
of effort is invested in innovation.
A large amount of innovation is still organised in dedicated
innovation department, however the amount of successful products
they produce is astonishingly low. Only 5% make it. Taking into
account that only less than a third of companies focus on new
products or services for realising growth, innovation is not as
fundamental as we would like. To improve the impact of profoundly
new introductions in the market place more focus should be placed
on achieving success in new product and service launches.
Innovation, really hard work!
16ki
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Getting access to and diversify ideas is key to profound innovation.
Extending your reach and scaling the resource pool of skilled people not
caught in the corporate logic is important. Collecting fresh ideas for new or
enhanced products or for new methods permits your company to diversify
and to grow longer extending the feared one product success. It is in this
place that innovation intermediaries were created. They created platforms
for contest or request for proposals, solving a key problem or the creation
of an expected potentially successful product. This way they can mobilise
skills, knowledge and competencies beyond the borders of the
organisation. Alternatively, companies are installing or investing in
innovations platforms as Spigit or Cognistreamer. They also permit to
extend their reach beyond the corporate confines and let them interact
with external parties bringing in ideas from outside the organisation.
the Money & the Ideas
Opening up to Innovation
The creation of idea markets attracting new skilled resources works well
for established companies. The individual with a good idea looking to
make an idea work and transform it as a marketable product will be looking
for funding to produce and launch an idea. Within tight money markets
finding money can be difficult. Traditional banks requiring sufficient
securities prove to be a problem for the creative individual. Investment
models leveraging scale and belief in your idea or product can also be
provided through not institutional channels based on a peer to peer model:
crowd funding has proven to be successful and accessible for many
people. They may extend to micro funding models for innovation.
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90%
of startups fail
http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/
2015/01/16/90-of-startups-will-fail-heres-what-
you-need-to-know-about-the-10/#f9986db55e19
92%
of startups fail 
within 3 years
https://www.quora.com/What-
percentage-of-startups-fail
Founders that learn are more successful: startups that have
helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from
startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x
better user growth.
74%
of startups fail 
due to pre-mature scaling
https://www.quora.com/What-
percentage-of-startups-fail
Solo founders take 3.6x longer to reach scale stage compared
to a founding team of 2
Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x more likely to
successfully scale with product-centric startups with no network
effects than with product-centric startups that have network effects.
Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business
founder raise 30% more money, have 2.9x more user growth and
are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-
heavy founding teams.
https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-startups-fail
Innovation, a startup story …
18ki
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Innovation, the role of the big corporation
0"
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60"
BEL"NLD"CHE"SW
E"FIN"AUT"IRL"ITA"FRA"LUX"NOR"GRC"PRT"DEU"CZE"GBR"DNK"ISR"TUR"EST"AUS"JPN"SVK"HUN"ESP"POL"CHL"KOR"
LVA"IND"BRA"
COL"Serv."
COL"M
anu."RUS"
%"
SMEs" Large"ﬁrms"
Firms introducing products new to the market, by ﬁrm size, 2010-12
OECD, based on Eurostat Community Innovation Survey (CIS-2012) and national data sources, June 2015.
http://www.oecd.org/site/innovationstrategy/
measuringinnovationanewperspective-onlineversion.htm#reaping
In general perception small businesses and startups are the breeding grounds
for innovation. Big companies are too bureaucratic and risk averse to generate
important innovation. When it comes to disruptive innovation, new comers are
needed as incumbents focus on existing markets. Still, large organisation have
more means and can support larger initiatives, requiring more important
investment, complicated processes and follow up with production. They also
have the possibility to go for large scale broad targeted change appealing to a
large audience.
In the current environment large companies introduce remarkably more product
to the market even though it may be incrementally innovative.
Big companies have proven to be able to innovate, setting up innovation
islands, providing time for employees to work on innovative ideas (3M, Google,
…) or opening up to innovation input from other sources through collaboration
with external parties such as universities, specialised laboratories or welcoming
ideas from individuals through innovation portal or by crowd sourcing problems
or issues.
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19
In most OECD countries, between
w
50 to 80%
http://yourstory.com/2014/08/oecd-
entrepreneurship-report/
of large enterprises cooperate
with others for product and/or
process innovation.
for companies with less than 250
employees
only 20 to 40%cooperate with others for product
and/or process innovation.

http://www.oecd.org/site/innovationstrategy/45392693.pdf
According to BTm
Sustained 
Innovation
results in
9%
performance 
advantage 
over its peers
btmcorporation.com
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Innovation, keep your eyes on the ball
Continuous innovation will guarantee a company’s position, sustaining innovation comes from
listening to the needs of customers in the existing market and creating products that satisfy their
predicted needs for the future in this way they remain connected with their existing customer
base, building on existing strengths. It may concern both incremental as major innovation.
Evolving products answering demand changes with commitment and at a high pace will
guarantee a market position, adapted products and maintain an increasingly precarious and
shorter market advantage.
As a continuous effort all channels for receiving signals in changing demand should be heard as
well as sources and indications proposing improvements or changes to existing products or
spin-offs of base products or services. Every actor should be valued. It gives a 9% Performance
advantage to your peers.

Go with your learning
Resources
Learning, Education & Demographics

Changing professions require chances in education
Jobs 
in-demand
TOP 
10
2004 2010
Not only are the life and existence of companies unstable, professions are under constant change as well. As new
technology appears, new skills are required that result in new job types.
The top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. What happens when comparing 2015 with 2004?
In the last 10 years a number of new jobs appeared, witnessing changes in society.
In terms of education, this means that we are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
For people this means that we need to re-skill in order to adapt to a new job for which we were not schooled initially.
Permanent learning is both a must and a challenge. Can training programs keep up or do we fall back on our learning
skills to keep up with job requirements? Do we need to adopt different learning strategies focusing on skills and
competences rather than on knowledge? It is sure that people need to be more self starting and that companies must
give room to initiative.
The 10 fastest growing occupations, 2000-2010 (percent change)
http://data.bls.gov
New since 2005
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/
2012/05/11/10-jobs-that-didnt-exist-10-years-ago/
App Developer
Market Research Data Miner
Educational or Admissions Consultants
Millennial Generational Expert
Social Media Manager
Chief Listening Ofﬁcer
Cloud Computing Services
Elder Care
Sustainability Expert
User Experience Design
22ki
.
Medical assistants
Computer systems analysts
Personal and home care aides
Database administrators
Desktop publishers
Network systems and data communications analysts
Network and computer systems administrators
Computer software engineers, systems software
Computer support specialists
Computer software engineers, applications
0 25 50 75 100

Computing capacity and capability are changing employment profiles, not only that they have created new jobs, they
will also erase a large number of jobs that were up until recently considered as stable and had a future. In addition to
delocalisation and outsourcing, automation will in the near future intervene in services jobs. Implementing advanced
algorithms based on big data volumes capable to learn by extracting patterns (AI and intelligent robots) will proof to be
the most profitable approach when getting the work done. Creativity, interpersonal skills and high-precision dexterity
remain mainly human characteristics that a computer or robot is still not able to substitute. It is estimated that 47
percent of total US employment is under high risk for automation, hitting also the middle classes.
According to a McKinsey study, major upskilling will be required for around 50 percent of jobs along the entire
insurance value chain.
Automation will progressively impact jobs. Whether a job is to be impacted by intelligent machines is a question of time.
Legal and social barriers will only delay the impact, not prevent it.
The potential to break down activities in small actions and to detect patterns in them is key to the new automation
wave. These skills analysing work, data and processes together with individual customisation producing exceptional
items outside the commodity offerings will continue to flourish.
47%
up to
of total US
employment is in the
high risk of
automation
Enhanced automation impacts on jobs and profiles
http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/
futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/
The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_
Paper_1.pdf
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23
Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University
Sylvain Johansson & Ulrike Vogelgesang Insurance on the threshold of digitization Implications for the Life and P&C workforce, European Insurance, December 2015

The share of the population aged
30-34 years who have successfully
completed university
is an increase of 10% in 10 years
Eurostat - June 29, 2015
30%

of all new jobs in the next 
10 years 
will require a college degree
The world at work: Jobs, pay, and skills for 3.5 billion people,
McKinsey & Company / Richard Dobbs, Anu Madgavkar,
Dominic Barton, Eric Labaye, James Manyika, Charles
Roxburgh, Susan Lund and Siddarth Madhav, June 2012,
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/employment_and_growth/
the_world_at_work.
There are quite some expectations toward education. Not only is the world
evolving more quickly than ever, with new professions and skill sets required,
we expect people coming from school to be ready to participate immediately in
the economic and professional environment.
Business processes, concepts and economic environment require increasingly
higher levels of education. This is reﬂected in the output of higher education
levels. This expectation for higher educated people is expected to be
increasing in the future. Automation and digitalisation of the world shifts volume
of work away from physical production to creative and technical professions,
requiring higher levels of education.
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60"
2003"2004"2005"2006"2007"2008"2009"2010"2011"2012"2013"2014"
EU"(28"countries)"
Belgium"
Denmark"
Germany"
France"
Netherlands"
Finland"
Sweden"
United"Kingdom"
The share of the population aged
30-34 years with tertiary education
0"
10"
20"
30"
40"
50"
60"
70"
2000" 2005" 2006" 2007" 2008" 2009" 2010" 2011" 2012" 2013"
Europe"25"
United"States"
Canada"
Australia"
OECD"?"Average"
OECD - June, 2015
0" 20" 40" 60" 80" 100"
EU"(27"countries)"
Belgium"
Germany"
United"Kingdom"
Sweden"
Denmark"
Norway"
France"
Diﬀerence"highestGlowest"educaHon"level"
TerHary"educaHon"
NonGterHary"educaHon"
Up"to"Secondary"educaHon"
Employment rate related to education level
As a percentage of population in that age group
!
Up!to!Secondary!education
Non1tertiary!education
Tertiary!education
Difference!highest1lowest!education!level
EU!(27!countries) 52,2 69,7 81,9 30
Belgium 47,1 68,5 81,8 35
Germany 57,7 76,7 87,6 30
United!Kingdom 56,5 75,3 83,2 27
Sweden 62,9 80,4 87 24
Denmark 60,2 77 86 26
Norway 64,8 79,4 89,3 25
France 54,7 69,7 81,4 27
Changing education levels support economic
evolutions
24ki
.

In-company training initiatives for competitiveness
Employers 
are for
38.3%
providers of non-formal

education and

training activities
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/
index.php/Lifelong_learning_statistics
of the EU28
population aged 25
to 64 participate in
education and
training 
for 2014
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Lifelong_learning_statistics
10.7%
An evolving market space requires speciﬁc skills, often new skills and knowledge. New products and services need to
be churned out at continuing faster pace. Technology evolution increases its pace and requires new knowledge, skills
and competences from users side but certainly from designers and developers perspective. Assembling of products
from existing components increases diversity.
Applied knowledge is directly valuable for an organisation. Knowledge acquired in the past and certainly knowledge of
the company has not suddenly become useless when navigating the decision ladder in the organisation or leveraging
knowledge, skills and experience of other groups and teams. Therefor pulling in or replacing resources having the
required skills is not necessarily the easy road to knowledge acquisition. When you want to be a forerunner the
necessary resources may not even be available.
Employers who want to remain on the main road in the competition game invest in training. Employees who want to be
employable over time participate in education and training. It should become a reﬂex and part of the daily life of both
employer and employee to stimulate learning.
7.1
6.8
18.6
5.7
31.7
31.2
28.9
22.2
17.8
17.0
Denmark SwedenFranceBelgium UK GermanyNetherlands
15.8
20.1
7.9
7.8 2014
2009
38
2007
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbytitle/
BB588D19B45C6E76CA2573B70016EFE2?OpenDocument
Australia
36
30 2008
2002
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/
pub/81-595-m/2009079/
participation-eng.htm
Canada
25ki
.

as much as

18%

of all training is now

delivered through
mobile devices
http://www.statista.com/statistics/
334266/us-mooc-penetration-by-
income/
Presents the share of U.S.
online population who
have taken or heard of a
massive open online
course (MOOC) as of
January 2014, sorted by
income. During the survey
period it was found that
only 4 percent of the
respondents in the income
group of 100,000 + U.S.
dollars had taken a MOOC
whereas 15 percent had
heard of it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/
2014/02/04/the-recovery-arrives-corporate-
training-spend-skyrockets/
Training delivery methods evolve
Based on April 2014 World Economic Outlook
https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/
TD/TD-Archive/2014/11/2014-State-of-the-
Industry-Report-Spending-on-Employee-
Training-Remains-a-Priority
The whole business environment is changing, resulting in new
professions requiring new skills. New content needs to be
presented and new materials need to be trained.
Pedagogical research has proven that merely presenting or
telling the content is not the most efﬁcient way of transferring
knowledge. More interactive methods profoundly involving
students result in better mastering of skills and remembering of
knowledge.
The pressure of technology speeds up the product cycle. This
also applies for training delivery. Mobile, gamiﬁcation, MOOCs
are recent items on the list of new and emerging eLearning
trends. Combining delivery options and more interactive
training techniques opens a new world.
The market for learning games is $3.9 billion (2013), and
expected to grow to $8.9 billion by 2017
The simulation-based learning market, which includes
corporate training games, is expected to grow even more from
$2.3 billion in 2012 to $6.6 billion in 2017
The Serious Games market, which Ambient calls game-based
learning, will grow from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in
2017
http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/16/with-a-mobile-boom-learning-games-are-a-1-5b-market-headed-
toward-2-3b-by-2017-exclusive/
26ki
.
other 15%
self-paced online
program 16%
led remotely by
instructor 5%
online by instructor 9%
Instructor led
in classroom
55%

Quick and continuous changes require new
learning strategies
Organisational learning can be deﬁned as the process through which organisations change or modify their mental
models, rules, processes or knowledge, maintaining or improving their performance. It is the individual and collective
learning process that aims to seek new ways of solving problems
Learning alters the way in which ﬁrms see and understand the world
Firms active in international markets generate more knowledge than their counterparts that sell only in the national
market. Volume counts, cross-pollination is a factor.
Innovation=Change = Learning
27ki
.

Analysts found that organisations with strong learning cultures are
46% 
more likely to be
strong innovators in
their markets
34%
more likely to get
to market before
their competitors
18% 
more likely to currently
be a market-share
leader in one or more
of their markets
33% 
more likely to report
higher customer
satisfaction than other
organisations
39% 
more likely to report
success implementing
customer suggestions
58% 
more likely to be
successful at
developing the skills
needed for meeting
future customer
demand.
http://www.bersin.com/News/Content.aspx?id=12521
Innovation is often isolated as a goal to be achieved in order to let an
organisation survive. Coming up with new products, services and working
methods is important. In an economic world where the competitive advantage
of a new product or service is short lived or even non-existent, being quick is
important. Coming up with new ideas and observations that permit
differentiation depends heavily on the learning capacity of an organisation and
its members. The ability to take up new ideas, to search for new concepts and
new solutions for problems is a capacity crucial for differentiating and realising
a competitive advantage.
Learning leads to competitiveness
28ki
.

Gallup’s 2013 - State of the Global Workplace: Employee 
Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide 
surveyed 140+ countries from 2011 through 2012
13%
employees
engaged
emotionally invested in and
focused on creating value
Not engaged 
63%
24% 
actively 
disengaged
87% are not
42% of Companies,
In
The Best Workers Are
The Least Engaged
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/04/02/in-42-of-companies-
the-best-workers-are-the-least-engaged/
In a fast moving world, requiring speedy interaction with market and customers, it’s all about making a difference.
In a world wherein the period of competitive advantage is shrinking, eventually coming to virtually zero, speed and clear
market understanding is key.
Making a difference requires an agile company that needs passionate and engaged people. Quick interaction with
customer, supplier and competitors requires motivated and empowered people that are quick on their feet when
unexpected events occur.
Majority of the professional population in companies declare to be not engaged, don’t feel related to the company, a
quarter of them are willing to go against the organisation’s needs. They tend to routine activities, to uphold current
practices, according to the set standards.
Creating a vibrant and creative organisation may result in the needed creative and reactive organisation. Changing
corporate culture to leverage these emotions is an option with margin that requires courage.
Staff Engagement : conditional
an experiment of Oswald e.a. referred in the

2013 UN happiness report

http://unsdsn.org/happiness/
piece rate pay for
happy
+12%
more output
research participants
29ki
.

At the moment, many organisations make appointments based on
applicants’ past performances. But we’ve found that a person’s track record is
no longer the most reliable indicator of how they might perform in future.
When we asked 800 senior executives in organisations around the world about
this topic, 78% told us track record is not the best guide to future success and
87% said companies need to take a bolder, more creative approach.”
http://www.changeboard.com/content/4627/leadership-and-management/recruitment/look-beyond-interview-with-james-martin-partner-at-
egon-zehnder/
“
30ki
.
Knowledge acquisition & HR
78%
past experience is
not predictive for
future
performance
87%
more creativity in
selecting people

Nine out of 10 respondents agreed that companies need to take a more
creative and daring approach to leadership development and nearly all
believe that personality traits are more important differentiators than skills and
knowledge. Two thirds named agility as the most important characteristic,
followed by engagement and sight (ranked 52% and 41% respectively).”
http://www.changeboard.com/content/4627/leadership-and-management/recruitment/look-beyond-interview-with-james-martin-partner-at-
egon-zehnder/
“52%
When preparing for a changing future, it is hard to build on knowledge and
experiences built in the past. Competences and attitude are a better predictor of
a persons success and achievements.
A capability to learn and build on past acquired skills and knowledge will be
differentiators for the future.
41%
engagement
agility
Characteristics sought in a leader by a future
oriented organisation
Characteristics sought
31ki
.

00" 10" 20" 30" 40" 50" 60" 70" 80" 90" 100"
United"States"
Australia"
EU"27"
Belgium"
Germany"
United"Kingdom"
Sweden"
Denmark"
Norway"
France"
55G64" 25G54" 15G24"
15#24 25#54 55#64
United States 45,5 75,1 60,0
Australia 60,7 79,8 61,1
EU 27 .. .. ..
Belgium 26,0 79,3 38,7
Germany 48,2 82,8 59,9
United Kingdom 50,1 80,1 56,8
Sweden 40,4 86,0 72,5
Denmark 57,5 82,3 59,5
Norway 51,4 84,7 69,6
France 29,9 81,3 41,4
Employment rates by age group
As a percentage of population in that age group
Western European historic Union members are challenged by an ageing
population, also in the group of their less and less active older professionals.
This societal challenges should reﬂect in product and services innovation. It is
not all about addressing millennials. Baby boomers remain a big group.
On the level of work force composition, letting go of senior employees, impacts
the knowledge and experience pool of organisations and our economy. Now
and in the years to come organisation will be confronted with big parts of their
workforce streaming out. Not preparing a workforce transition and knowledge
and skills continuity plan will disrupt the organisations functioning and even its
existence.
Experience is essentially valued with efﬁciency in mind. It has its value when
innovating. Cultivating an atmosphere inviting initiative and creativity invites
everybody. Experience should not be seen as an inhibitor of change or
innovation. It is an important asset and source of ideas when engaged in lateral
and associative thinking set up as a group process and certainly not only when
thinking through the negative side effects of a concept. The right mix of
participants is key when initiating these initiatives.
0"
10"
20"
30"
40"
50"
60"
70"
80"
90"
100"
Belgium" USA" EU725" EU715" EUROZONE" EEA728"
67+"
55767"
45754"
35744"
25734"
15724"
715"
Experience challenges & Demographics
32ki
.

Building a Corporate
Learning and
Innovation capacity

Innovation Invention=Change
Contextual Change
≠
Urgency - Speed
Scope & ContentSource & Drive
Need for survival
New Product
Efficiency
Learning
Innovation often starts as a response to a need or a specific problem. Pro-
actively it should enable you to maintain a position, have a well spread offering.
Evolution of customer demand, technology and competitor offering is perceived
to increase its pace. Capitalising on a competitive advantage for a long term:
one should not count on it. It is increasingly difficult to maintain the lead in a
particular domain. Market and product advantages are shorter lived than in the
known past.
Innovating, changing and adapting is a necessity for survival. Contextual
changes will drive change and innovation, but more importantly define the
urgency, speed and impact of changes required.
Organisations should adapt and innovate in such a way they respond to
contextual needs and build a product/services portfolio that holds enough
diversity on itself but also on the level of individual maturity. A balanced portfolio
contains top performers as well as upcoming, promising products and a pipeline
of new products, in occurrence requiring a complete turnaround.
Knowledge
Context as driver
34ki
.

All Staff Management
Trends
Technology
DemandCompetition
ConversationIdeation
Idea & Component Search
In some cases an organisation considers itself as a fortress bombarded by
external forces or influences. Where innovation was mainly driven by our own
insight and direct demand, we are now, mainly due to increasing velocity of
innovation outside the own organisation, pressured by innovation and changes of
more diverse nature.
Being on the forefront of trends, or jumping on the bandwagon on the right
moment is a balancing act.
More complex products are increasingly under pressure of technological
evolutions. IT is increasingly becoming a part of the majority of products or
services. IT is penetrating products and markets where it was not perceived as
fundamental part of the offering. Working with and integrating information,
integrating more intelligence in applications for interacting with user profile data
is definitely a trend.
The more products are component based, the more competition will engage in a
race of including a new feature first. Innovation gets scattered over different
parties.
Lowering borders and barriers is a pressure with which everybody is or will be
confronted. Organisational edges get blurred. One needs to involve more diverse
parties in product development and innovation. Working is more delocalised and
nomadic. Working relations are increasingly temporary and based on need for
expertise of the moment, expressed in an increase in freelancers all over.
Applied Innovation - a responsive process
35ki
.

Laying out the borders of organisations is important for construing identity, group
feel and cohesion. Culture is deﬁnitely an important attribute of organisations. It
deﬁnes ways of working, behaviour and interaction models that are generally
accepted as they were developed over time. Culture contains much knowledge
and organisational history. It should however not imply isolation from the global
context in which the organisation is active.
Resist to or abide to external pressures is often considered the only option
available. An organisation goes on stubbornly or simply reacts to external
pressure and leads.
Building a protective shell might be good, but introduces latency when reacting
to customers, needs, demands and market trends as well as evolution in
technical possibilities. Insight focus on own functioning and capabilities enforces
group thought and focus on internal optimisations.
Simply following the market whims leads in extreme cases to a loss of focus,
positioning as a laggard and loss of identity.
Trends Technology
DemandCompetition
CustomersPartners
Suppliers
Competitors
Innovation - Organisation - the role of borders
36ki
.

New products and services produce revenue when responding to an existing
need or when anticipating one. A specific need or demand can only be identified
when involving all parties concerned and when they are sufficiently open to new
ideas and willing to take the, associated risks.
This demands collaboration of everybody, occasionally of external sources.
Through the lenses of their position, staff and management see opportunities
differently. Intense conversation about opportunities opens views. Broad
participation in a diverse team or population permits cross pollination of ideas.
Research on understanding the request and available products, services or
components lead ideation process. Iterating through ideas, progressively solving
errors speedily depends on strong decentralisation in decision making, intense
dialogue and participative decision making.
Availability of existing knowledge is a condition for further thinking. Continuous
learning, adapting and building on existing ideas or products does require more
than simple reuse and operating on the existing. Inquiring on new applications or
development of new products and services requires inspiration, room for
experimentation, empathy for the future user and risk taking. Developing these
ideas and launching these products and services efficiently and speedily involves
a level of commitment that can only be reached with motivated teams.
Challenges for the innovative company are related to the flow of knowledge and
information, the commitment of staff to build on the inspiration and ideas, to
integrate external ideas and to take the necessary risks while being agile and
quick on their feet.
Conversation
Ideation
Idea & Component Search
Applied Innovation - a collaborative process
37ki
.

Conversation
Creativity, innovation, ideation are deﬁnitely intense processes that can yield
promising solutions to existing problems. Unlike invention, I am convinced they
are gradual and strongly dialectic and interactive processes. Building on
proposed ideas and cross pollination are key elements.
Opening up to external ideas through the integration of client conversation in
the creative processes or by involving external parties like through crowd
sourcing, connecting with R&D processes of partners and suppliers or by
subcontracting (with strong involvement) to external research institutes call for
a more permeate organisational border. Listing skills, observation and
interacting with communities, while integrating into the organisation, are pre-
conditions for quick evolution and market adaptation or even to anticipate them.
Combining open innovation with social marketing and communication are
existing concepts that when well-positioned support innovation.
Innovation initiation based on conversation
38ki
.

Awareness of market evolution, requires observation, spotting of new trends and
evolutions underpinning applied innovations.
Observing the market by following social media, engaging in particular and
topical social channels, combined with big data analysis, integrating it in a well
balanced competitive intelligence process supports and directs the innovation
process.
The context intelligence group can enhance or nuance the overall conversation
going on between internal parties in their global organisational context. They can
play a privileged role in the conversation crossing the organisational border.
Including upper management in the gate passing through to production
guarantees realisation of the innovative ideas.
Initiating Innovation - context intelligence
39ki
.

Innovation - a knowledge process
Innovation is about combining data, information, knowledge, insight and understanding of demand and potential of a
market demand or application of technology or idea. It is an individual and collective learning process that aims to seek
new ways of solving problems. Innovation performance is a function of organisational learning capability. Therefor we
have to build on the knowledge that is available, combine it in other ways than before, exploit the knowledge we have
and extend it with new sources. So it is critical to grow team member diversity, foster openness to ideas, and encourage
communication. The main assets are the employees, who are motivated, ﬂexible, enthusiastic and creative, networking
in a diverse social network and creative communities.
The more knowledge a ﬁrm has gained through intensive learning efforts, the more willing it will be to utilise and exploit
this knowledge through subsequent activity
40ki
.

Innovation is a
knowledge process

Deﬁning a knowledge infrastructure
Depending on the level of breakdown or granularity, knowledge can be reduced
to data, rules or content. Contextually imbedding creates added value, letting
human actors to focus on what they are good at. The implementation builds on
knowledge elicited from experience available.
Knowledge can be made insightful, explicit and/or embedded in processes,
structures, or speciﬁc software solutions. These elements are activated.
Alternatively knowledge is made explicit in documentation for reference.
As APQC research shows, the human aspect of knowledge management is often
forgotten. Conversation and human relationships are key to innovation and
creativity, but unstructured and hard to control processes.
People
Process
Tools
Content
42ki
.

Rules & Regulations
Learning systems
Rules extraction
Topical Summary Pages
Building a knowledge architecture
Methodology
Frequently Asked Questions
Selected threads
Selected best practices
Case based info
Conversation
Demographic enhancement
Analytics (BI & Big Data)
Transactional Data
Social & Knowledge network
Discussion Thread overview
Specialist Directory
In general when considering knowledge management one thinks of formally
documented explicit knowledge . This traditional entitative view on knowledge
management results in a countable set of knowledge assets, possible to budget.
Setting targets on accrual is deﬁnitely an asset in an ongoing management
setting.
Extracting knowledge from data collected in the past is a valuable source of
knowledge. This certainly applies to data intensive transactional
environments. When enhanced with extended demographic data or even
sentiment analytics on social media, you can obtain insight in opinions, demand
and market structures and potential trends. When reconstructing decisions,
patterns are formed that may enable us to construct rules or feed learning
systems.
This however ignores the huge potential of more valuable though hard to obtain
and detect knowledge hidden in our social networks, communities or highly
experienced people (deep smarts).
Building a highly valuable knowledge architecture taps all different sources of
knowledge available in the corporate ecosystem. Apart from the well known
documentary sources, knowledge - and certainly inspiring creativity - is highly
implicit or tacit. Only through conversations that span domains and time it can
be mined.
43ki
.

Building communities
Practices
Interests
Units
Customers
Partners
Suppliers
Conversation Communities bring together people, foster and generate ideas. They should also
bring a variety of people together. They focus on themes, on practices, or
(role)groups. Really enriching ideas are obtained when getting input from outside
of the in-crowd.
Communities concentrate on energising participation, however do not expect
everybody to interact with the community with the same intensity. Observers or
lurkers may proﬁt from ideas, bring them to practice. Active involvement is
triggered when the need for it is felt, when there is something valuable to report
according to your opinion.
A community or social network attracts members and maintains its traction when
enough is happening in the group. A rhythm structures the life of the community.
Exceptional (attractive) events attract members and bring them together giving
something to talk about.
Most useful ideas and community dynamics start off in the safety of private
interaction. Therefore, aside the public forum it should provide room for private
interaction.
44ki
.

Building blocks a knowledge infrastructure
Focuses on development of Human Capital in
a context of HR politics and strategy of the
company.

In a global context of performance
improvement of human resources, retention
policy and personnel development, specific
knowledge management tracks are identified.
They leverage and facilitate informal, implicit
knowledge available in a formal or virtual
organisation.

Focuses on processes, procedures and
best practices for creating, publishing and
managing content of any kind created in
an organisation or company.

Content created may be the primary
focus of the process or secondary to it as
where business processes produce
content, mostly documents, to witness
conclusions and materialised transactions
conclusion to be communicated with
parties involved.

The knowledge managed in this track is
formal, explicit and thus the product of
explicit or implicit knowledge elicitation.

Focuses on formalising, imbedding and
automating complex decisions part of
core business processes.

Quite a number of decisions taken in
business are founded on participants
knowledge and experience. Improving
consistency and speed of execution is an
argument for imbedding knowledge in
business applications and processes.
Resulting knowledge elicitation projects
are mostly triggered by important
company milestones and evolutionary
pressure (mass retirement of core staff,
external market pressure resulting in high
staff turn-over, …).

Focuses first of all on data consolidated
based on internal sources. They are
summarised in business reports and models
permitting to evaluate performance (process,
financial, …) and consequently guide
improvement and re-engineering projects.

45ki
.
Com
petence
M
anagem
ent
Netw
orking
Know
ledge
Com
m
unities
ofPractice
Team
Collaboration
Learning
M
anagem
ent
Know
ledge
O
bservatory
(externalsource)
Docum
entM
anagem
ent
DigitalAssetM
anagem
ent
Records
M
anagem
ent
Publishing
&
Com
m
unication
Business
Sem
antics
Business
Process
M
anagem
ent
Business
Rules
M
anagem
ent
ArtificialIntelligence
&
Deep
Learning
Big
Data
Data
W
arehousing
Business
IntelligenceReporting
Trend
Analysis
&
Prediction
1 2 3 4 5 76 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
DataPeople
Informal/Tacit Knowledge Formal Knowledge
Findability Enhancement
Automation & Robotisation
A B C D Performance MgmtEmbeddingContent MgmtHuman Capital Mgmt
Digitalisation

Most programs focus on institutionalising KM initiatives, laying out an
organisation structure, team and management.
Everybody potentially involved has to be profoundly convinced of the value of
knowledge for the organisation. Support and endorsement of management and
leadership is important, success depends however largely on a growing
pervasiveness of the idea and on engagement and involvement of a critical
mass. People have to get active in identifying knowledge artefacts, elements and
triggers. Pro-actively submitting content or initiating and participating in
conversation depends largely on commitment, feedback and on being valued for
ideas.
In addition the initiative will only be integrated in the organisation when added
value is clearly generated and communicated and more importantly when
knowledge generation and use are part of the daily business process, in the
stream of business life. It should not be an administrative afterthought, a mere
formality to be fulfilled.
Implementing a knowledge infrastructure
46ki
.
Organisation Strategy
Statement
Organisation Evolution mid
& long term
Positioning existing and future
(short & mid term)
Services Portfolio
Knowledge
Overview
Inventory available
Knowledge
Knowledge Fit-Gap
Analysis
Inception & Familiarisation on
Context faze
Knowledge Requirements
Definition faze
Knowledge Strategy
Definition faze
Merger/Acquisition
Acquire/buy research
Acquire consult
Buy documentation
Hire staff
Apply 3rd party knowledge
Adopt knowledge other domains
R&D
Develop methodology
Analyse own data
Share knowledge 
cross domain
Apply existing knowledge
Aggressiveness
Exploit
Explore
Intern Extern
Orientation on the knowledge source
Orientationonacquisition
Crowd Source
Open Innovation
Knowledge Acquisition
Strategy
Knowledge Development &
Acquisition Road Map
Knowledge Management
Road Map

Get the organisation to learn
Workplace learning, both formal and informal, is acquiring increasing importance in the education and training of
workforces. Workplace learning enables individuals, employers and organisations to respond to the changing nature of
economic activity. It helps improve efﬁciency and productivity, and it meets the personal and career development needs
of individuals.
Supporting and valuing a culture of learning in the workplace is important because ongoing learning is needed to survive
at a time of increasing competition, with positive consequences for workers' well-being and individual learning.
Moreover, with the aim of skilling and upskilling employees for continued employability, organisations can play a vital
role in promoting the quality of work life.
From a group perspective we progress more when getting an organisation to learn profoundly through questioning the
trigger of the need for change, rather than adapting and accommodating. Profound or second loop learning involves
questioning an organisation’s underlying norms, policies and objectives. It is more creative and reﬂexive.
47ki
.

Transform to a knowledge driven innovative
organisation
break down organisational barriers and silos as they encourage people
to isolate from other groups and narrow group think in a logic of competing
or opposing teams and units
interaction with the external environment will permit monitoring of what
lives with customers, partners and suppliers. It gives direction to the
innovation, enhancing internal & external learning. This brings fresh
ideas to the table creates, cross pollination with existing and potential
users/customers, while also having an eye on the own efficiency and
effectivity
team member diversity brings ideas ands skills to the table that cannot be
expected from an individual. Design practices, teams and organisations
promoted by the likes of Ideo are build around interdisciplinarity to come
quickly with complete prototypes
openness to ideas - even the less obvious ones - will trigger out of the box
thinking and lateral problem solving
in the line, encouragement of communication make up the dialogue
dimension
In order to leverage company knowledge and the potential for innovation a
number of pre-conditions are to be fulfilled:
overall engagement of employees to guarantee that all take a pro-active
stance, profit from the conditions created in the environment and join in the
conversation
decentralisation in decision making to loosen up the control based
hierarchical structure and increase velocity encouraging engagement
dialogue and participative decision making will assure involvement of
organisational leadership and idea enhancement
encourage risk taking and promote error tolerance and thus encourage
taking initiatives and not to shy away from new practices and retract in
established routines
push experimentation so to have quick confirmation on the validity of an
idea
social relations and reinforcement of social fabric will leverage talents
available in the organisation and thus cross fertilise generating ideas
through confrontation of complementary or conflicting practices and ideas
48ki
.

An adaptive and generative spirit are key conditions for a learning and
innovative organisations. Learning alters the way in which ﬁrms see and
interpret the world.
Complex adaptive systems are composed of semi-autonomous agents that
seek to maximise ﬁtness by adjusting interpretative and action-oriented schema
while complex generative systems are able to self-transcend.
Organising for a knowledge driven innovative
organisation
49ki
.

Regardless of impact, innovation can be internal or external oriented,
improving process efﬁciency or enhancing products and services directed to
customers.
Consequences of the type of innovation differ. An incremental innovation
builds upon knowledge and resources already present in the company, which
means it is competence-enhancing. A radical innovation, on the other hand,
requires completely new knowledge and/or resources, and will therefore be
competence-destroying.
Consequences of innovation type for the
organisation
Radical innovation Feature Enhancement Process Optimisation
Inductive/Emergent/
Disruptive Innovation
Incremental Innovation
Innovation can have a more or less radical impact. Some situations require
a turn around. Positioning in another market is certainly a shock and
requires an important change. Nokia has proven it is possible. Harsh drop
in demand for a basic product may need to radically reposition a company,
to reinvent itself.
Majority of innovation consist of enhancements on a running product.
Adding features, changing a design or implement technology
enhancements are majority of innovations and product changes. It builds
on existing knowledge and skills and sustains market position.
50ki
.

Road Bump Oscillation Natural Growth Sustained Development
Adapt change approach …
Feature Enhancement Process Optimisation
Both process optimisation and product feature
enhancement result in incremental changes in the
organisation. It gives a ring to it, asking an effort to come
up with and integrate the new features or optimised
processes in the daily routine. Small changes occur
regularly.
As an Inductive/Emergent/ Disruptive Innovation
process it may be driven by anybody in the
organisation, detecting a shift in demand and
concerned with the well being of the organisation he
is working in. He/she brings the opportunity or
challenge to the attention and triggers an initiative of
adaptation.
A crisis is detected, a shock needs to be applied.
The change will be forced, imposed upon the
organisation. A strong leader shows the way. The
change is planned and implemented as a project.
Once the hurdle is taken, a return to normal
business occurs.
51ki
.

Establish continuous change
Engagement
Conversation
Trust Vision
Once the organisation is adapted to new circumstances, staying aligned is the
next challenge. Avoid the change road bumps, that will present themselves
regularly in a rapid changing environment.
A dynamic organisation, that is responsive to changing circumstances and agile
turning will be built on engaged teams, willing to take initiative and experiment
supporting competitiveness. This can only happen in a trusting environment
where one is valued and ideas are taken on in conversation.
The context in which to work is deﬁned by a solid long term vision, not bound
by the concrete situation of the times we are set in or by running products.
52ki
.

Apply Organisation
Innovation and Change
Needs

Context &
Vision
Overall & Product
Performance
Knowledge
Need
Company
Culture
Innovation
Approach
Process
Performance
1 2 3 4 5 6
Getting Ready
Assess the current situation
In the knowledge
need assessment
we evaluate the
knowledge need and
availability in context
of the laid out
strategy and vision
Is the company
culture in line with
the ambition laid
out in the vision
and in line with the
organisational and
economical
context
Processes, well-
structured or more
liberal have to be at parr
with the organisation’s
context, competitors
and ambition
How is the
products and
services portfolio
composed? How
does the
competitive
landscape look?
Who are the
competitors? Are
strategy and
tactics in line?
Evaluate the products
and services portfolio on
its ﬁnancial
performance. Overall
sales volume, margin;
portfolio evolution
through time
Evaluates your
innovation
capabilities and
performance looking
from an idea
generation,
creativity,
organisational and
process point of
view
54ki
.

Corporate Performance
Process Performance
Market Positioning
Company, Market &
Product Vision
Corporate Culture
Innovation Approach
Knowledge Need
Individual Product Performance
Break 
with the past
Disruptive Innovation & Change
Evolve 
from the past
Built on existing capacity and develop
Blend in 
new concepts
Leverage & Combine with external sources
Market Situation
Your Company
Defining your company evolution
The way into the future and the roadmap to be
defined depends strongly on the market
position to be acquired. Do you want to lead or
to focus on commodity production? Combined
with data about current and near future
position measures are defined with attention
on the needed knowledge, innovation and
change approach to get there.
This might mean:
Break with the past and reinvent your
company, lay out a new product portfolio,
transform resource catalogue, knowledge
collection and culture.
When one decides on building and developing
based on existing positions, updating
underlying resources and product portfolio is
your best option
In other cases combining and enhancing your
offerings my require to blend in knowledge
and ideas from other sources, opening up to
the needs of customers and ideas of partners
and suppliers. A related culture is to be
constructed while levering knowledge from
different sources.
55ki
.

Break with the past
Disruptive Innovation & Change
56ki
.
Occasionally an organisation is forced into transformation, a turn around.
Conditions have changed, the market you’re in is coming to an end. Re-
inventing yourself by looking for, or creating a new product or services portfolio
or changing from a product to a services organisation requires strategic
change.
Define a new portfolio, go to market approach and positioning will require new
competencies and a staff turn around. Can resources be retrained to fit the new
business (model) or do we engage new teams? This evaluation has important
impact on the company and more importantly on the people staying on board.
Inspiring or imposing the turn around will be a challenge and requires forced,
speedy and important change. Sharing vision and direction, intensely
communicating about it, not only by sending the message but engaging into
communication continuously is required.
Knowledge Sourcing
Strategy
Position Assessment
Portfolio Definition
Talent Acquisition &
Development plan
Go2Market
Business Model Generation
Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur
Opportunity
Detection
Development
Capabilities
Demand Evolution
Change Roadmap
Definition
Transformation
Execution
Training
Communication
Sourcing
Partner
Embed
Permanent
Sourcing
Temporary Sourcing
Platforms & Support
Processes
Essential
Repositioning
Actively
Disengage

Evolve the past
Build on existing capacity, develop and adapt
57ki
.
Building a capacity of sustained innovation and adaptation requires sufﬁcient
openness and absorptive capacity, resulting in a sustained competitive
advantage.
Engaging staff is key, they all need to participate in idea generation, creativity
and market watch. Detecting opportunities and launching communication about
changes and request in the global market place or (technical) opportunities to
increase performance and efﬁciency require initiative and responsiveness from
all. Picking up the idea, analysing it, experimenting with it and proposing new
processes, products and services should be encouraged. It leads to the creation
and mining of new markets or may affect the go to market strategy or tactics.
Being ready to change the product portfolio continuously and quickly has to be
part of the organisation’s cultural DNA.
Rapid Product
Innovation
Radical
Commoditisation
Market Watch Trend Analysis Mood Analysis
Competitive
Analysis
Detect Opportunities
Research &
Development plan
Listening &
Conversation plan
Knowledge management &
development plan
Social Network
leverage
Knowledge
Curation
Talent Inventory &
Development plan
Culture & Innovation
Attitude development

Blend in new concepts
Leverage & Combine with external sources
58ki
.
Rapid Product
Innovation
Market Watch Trend Analysis Mood Analysis
Competitive
Analysis
Detect Opportunities
Establish partnerships 
for Research & Development plan
Listening &
Conversation plan
Integrate Knowledge
Sourcing Strategy
Innovation focus
Mix & Match
Architect value added solutions
Knowledge
Curation
Knowledge
Exchange
Speeding up innovation and increasing opportunity detection capacity is
certainly achieved when more parties participate constructively in the
conversation. Tapping creativity from different origin and perspective enriches
idea generation and development processes. This will result in mixing and
matching knowledge, experience and perspectives. On another level it permits
the combination of solution components from different sources and origins, they
may be existing or new or combining in new end products.
Setting up partnerships with a high level of trust and security for all parties. This
framework will assure that the information and knowledge can be exchanged
and shared freely.
Social Network
leverage

ki
.
Essential
Repositioning
Actively
Disengage
Rapid Product
Innovation
Radical
Commoditisation
Business Model Generation
Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur
New Product Catalog
New Company
Organisation
Establish Key
Thresholds
Evaluate
performance portfolio
Weed portfolio
Scout options & needs
Evaluate feasibility
Design & produce
Launch
Push standardisation
& reuse
Analyse cost structure
Eliminate overhead
Update process
59
Adapt from a product point of view

IknowiT
.
koenraad.seys@iknowit.eu
http://iknowit.eu

The need of innovation and knowledge as the most valuable asset in the process

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