Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine May 2017 - 56

Why It Is Important to Build an Innovation Strategy Through the Project Management Maturity Model

Figure 2.

Strong integration among technology and products.

tion. But it lacked a strategic vision. It had an incomplete business
and requirement analysis and lacked the attitude to address new
technological trends and the agility to face a new competitive scenario. People no longer needed to take and print pictures but preferred to share and post them on different social media and mobile
phone apps. Then, new functions, higher interoperability levels,
and new technology were required. The competitive scenario was
composed of many small, agile, and more competitive manufacturers in Asia with a clear strategy focused on price and technology
excellence. Kodak, however, stayed focused on old technology, not
recognizing the value of the new ones, and lost market share [3].

LUCENT AND CISCO
Lucent, a multinational telecommunications company and an innovation leader, was inspired by closed innovation (in house) that it
applied only in some specific contexts. In the breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), Lucent inherited
the better share of Bell Laboratories and, along with it, a wealth of
research and development expertise. It launched many successful
new products without reaching relevant competitive positioning,
and its financial exposure increased. Rival Cisco kept pace with
Lucent and occasionally beat it to market, leveraging the power of
external ideas and recognizing the import-export value of intellectual capital. It scanned the world for start-ups, investing in some,
partnering with others, and finally acquiring some of them. In this
way, Cisco made feasible and sustainable some disruptive innova56

tions, investing with low funding, splitting costs and risks among a
number of shareholders in some cases, and transferring or sharing
them in other cases [4].

INNOVATION STRATEGY
Each business entity has a peculiar value chain that describes
performed activities and how each activity contributes to reach
a competitive advantage. It depends mainly on the business domain, company size and culture, market size, and competitive environment. In the domain of defense and security, many political,
economic, legal, regulatory compliance, and technological issues
strongly influence all the organization's parameters, so it is crucial to establish a strategic operational framework to control and
govern all business forces: internal and external. This framework
(Figure 3) identifies the governance, the vision, and interactions
among internal operational and support processes; how the organization can address strategy; how these processes are implemented
and monitored; and who is responsible of them. It's composed of
two groups of processes: business strategy and positioning and
business execution. The first group (business strategy and positioning) is mainly dedicated to defining the company vision and
mission, the stakeholders, the market evolution, the competitive
scenario, the strategic goals and objectives, who is responsible for
what, the key performance indicators (KPIs), the associated targets, some plans, and the control and communication model. The
second group (business execution) is dedicated to the effective

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MAY 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine May 2017