Governance: The Critical Link Between Innovation and Commercial Success (AI voices Arkaro content)

Welcome to the Arkaro Insights podcast. This episode is based on original content developed by Arkaro. At Arkaro, we're committed to innovation in everything we do—including how we share our insights. We've utilised advanced AI technology to transform our written expertise into this conversational format, making our content more accessible and convenient for our busy B2B audience. What you'll hear is a two-person discussion generated through AI voice technology, designed to deliver our insights in a more engaging way than traditional reading. As we continue to evolve this approach, we genuinely value your feedback. Thank you for listening to Arkaro Insights, where professional expertise meets innovative delivery.

Full article: 5 Innovation Governance Failures Killing Your Product Launches

The difference between innovation success and failure often lies not in the idea itself but in the governance systems that shepherd it from concept to market. In this eye-opening episode, we reveal how most product launch failures are in fact governance failures that occurred 18-36 months earlier in the development process, creating vulnerabilities that become catastrophic by launch time.

We meticulously unpack the five critical governance failures undermining commercial innovation success: the inability to kill doomed projects early, poor KPI design that rewards counterproductive behaviors, strategic drift that fragments resources, portfolio pruning failures leading to resource starvation, and inadequate launch readiness governance. Through real-world examples and evidence from companies like Bosch (which terminates 70% of early-stage ideas as "necessary success"), we demonstrate how these hidden governance missteps silently kill promising innovations.

The episode reveals striking evidence that companies with effective innovation governance achieve marketplace success rates 2.5 times higher than their peers, with top performers generating 50% of their five-year sales from new products. We provide actionable frameworks for building "gates with teeth" - governance systems with clear decision authority, cross-functional gatekeepers, objective criteria, and funding tied directly to gate decisions. You'll learn how to design balanced KPI systems that encourage the right behaviors and how to integrate project and portfolio governance for optimal resource allocation.

Whether you're struggling with "zombie projects" that drain resources, KPIs that subtly encourage the wrong behaviors, or strategic drift that fragments your innovation efforts, this deep dive offers practical solutions for building governance capabilities that drive consistent commercial success rather than occasional lucky wins. Visit arkaro.com to learn how we can help your organization implement these governance principles or email mark@arkaro.com for a free consultation about your specific innovation challenges.

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Transcript

Introduction to Innovation Governance

Speaker 1 0:47

Welcome to the Deep Dive here at Arkaro Insights. Our mission is simple helping B2B executives like you deliver well better results. We explore the latest ideas and change and innovation for your organization. Today we're plunging into a topic that often flies under the radar but is absolutely essential for commercial success Innovation governance. Now you might hear governance and think, oh boy, dry stuff. But trust us, this is really where the success or, frankly, the failure of your product launches often gets decided.

Speaker 1 1:19

That's exactly it, you've got some really compelling source material for today's deep dive. It meticulously unpacks this critical link it's often hidden, you know the link between R&D investment, business development and actual commercial success. And what it really highlights is how product launch failures. They're usually those last-minute marketing blunders, or you know sales team missteps Not typically. They're usually the direct result of governance failures, decisions made months, sometimes years, before a product even gets close to the market.

Speaker 2 1:47

Absolutely, and what's often fascinating and well, quite sobering is how that launch failure, the thing everyone sees and reacts to, is really just the symptom.

Speaker 1 1:57

The tip of the iceberg.

What Is Innovation Governance?

Speaker 2 1:58

Exactly. It reveals much earlier, almost invisible governance missteps that were kind of baked into the process way back when. So our mission today is to pull back the curtain on these hidden root causes. We want to help you understand how effective proactive governance doesn't just prevent those big failures. It actually creates the framework, the right ecosystem for consistent and, importantly, profitable innovation success.

Speaker 1 2:25

Okay, let's really unpack this. Then, if you're an executive and you're eager to make sure those innovation investments truly pay off, you want to avoid those heartbreaking product failures.

Speaker 2 2:33

The ones that drain resources and morale.

Speaker 1 2:35

Exactly, Then this deep dive is absolutely for you. So let's start at the beginning. What exactly is innovation governance? Why is it such a well, such a profoundly critical link in that whole innovation chain?

Speaker 2 2:46

Right? Well, innovation governance essentially operates on two interconnected levels Think of it like that and both are absolutely crucial for getting solid commercial outcomes. It's sort of a dual control system. So at the project level it guides individual innovations, you know, from just an idea all the way through development, usually using structured stage gate processes.

Speaker 1 3:08

Okay, the familiar gates.

Speaker 2 3:09

Right and at each of these gates, the governance body whoever that is makes critical go-kill decisions.

Speaker 1 3:15

Go-kill Sounds decisive.

Speaker 2 3:17

It has to be Deciding whether to keep investing, maybe pivot or just terminate the project entirely, and that's based on clear, agreed-upon criteria. Then you've got the portfolio level, and innovation governance there takes a much broader view.

Speaker 1 3:32

We're going to cross everything.

Speaker 2 3:33

Exactly. It manages the balance of all the projects in the pipeline. This means strategically allocating those scarce resources money, people, time. It involves prioritizing and making sure everything, all the innovation efforts, are tightly aligned with the bigger business strategy and what the market actually needs.

Speaker 1 3:49

It's making sure you're working on the right things, essentially.

Speaker 2 3:52

Right At the right time with the right resources.

Speaker 1 3:55

And the sources. They paint a pretty stark picture of what happens when these systems aren't just good on paper but aren't really working effectively in the real world, don't they?

Speaker 2 4:05

Oh, absolutely the evidence, and this comes from extensive client work across different industries agriculture, food, chemicals, you name it. It's overwhelmingly clear. The vast majority of what get labeled launch failures. They are, in fact, direct consequences of governance failures that happened much, much earlier, often 18 to 36 months earlier back in development 18 to 36 months Wow. Long before launch and these are decisions, like you said, often invisible to senior leadership until it's really far too late they create these fundamental vulnerabilities and by the time a product reaches the market, they become catastrophic.

Speaker 1 4:41

So what kind of things are we talking about?

Five Critical Governance Failures

Speaker 2 4:42

Well, think about inadequate market validation early on. You know building something nobody really wants or will pay for, right. Classic mistake or critical resource allocation issues where promising projects just starve for funding at crucial moments, or maybe even KPI systems that maybe unintentionally reward speed or just activity over true readiness and market fit.

Speaker 1 5:06

The metrics trap.

Speaker 2 5:07

Exactly these early missteps that are like the silent killers of innovation.

Speaker 1 5:12

Silent killers. That's powerful, okay. So the material highlights five specific recurring governance failures that consistently undermine commercial success. They turn promising ideas into disappointments. Let's dig into these, because this feels like where it gets really interesting and hopefully actionable for anyone trying to launch new products successfully.

Speaker 2 5:31

Indeed, recognizing these patterns, just seeing them clearly, that's absolutely the first step towards building more resilient and effective innovation processes.

Speaker 1 5:40

Okay, first one failure to kill doomed projects early. This sounds well painful, yes, but critical for any organization it's that inability to just stop projects even when the data, the evidence, is basically screaming they're not going to make it. I'm picturing those zombie projects you mentioned earlier, just shuffling along.

Speaker 2 5:57

Eating up resources.

Speaker 1 5:58

Exactly Sucking the life out of the pipeline.

Speaker 2 6:01

That's a really apt metaphor, Precisely the core issue here. It's often a mix of things. There's the sunk cost fallacy, that very human tendency to keep throwing good money after bad just because you've already invested so much.

Speaker 1 6:15

Right, hard to walk away.

Speaker 2 6:16

Very hard. Then there's emotional attachment from the team. They believe in it and, of course, the inevitable internal politics that can make pulling the plug really difficult. All these things conspire to keep these projects on life support. So how?

Speaker 1 6:29

do you fight that to keep these projects?

Speaker 2 6:30

on life support. So how do you fight that? Well, the source material points to Bosch as a kind of masterclass. In doing this systematically, with discipline, they've actually built a culture around it. For instance, they give their innovation teams about three months and a set budget, around $120,000, for initial evidence gathering.

Speaker 1 6:47

Just three months.

Speaker 2 6:48

Just three months focused specifically on customer needs and validating the core problem. It's a structured way to test those crucial early assumptions quickly and relatively cheaply.

Speaker 1 6:58

That sounds incredibly disciplined, especially for a big company. So what does that actually mean in practice for Bosch? What happens after those three months?

Speaker 2 7:06

Well, after that initial phase, Bosch retires. They actually terminate almost 70 percent of ideas if they don't have enough hard customer evidence. 70%, 70. They don't just put them on hold. And even after they build an MVP, a minimum viable product, and test that with customers, another 74% are retired if they still can't definitively prove customer value or a viable market.

Speaker 1 7:28

Wow, so they're killing a huge number of projects.

Speaker 2 7:31

Huge numbers. But here's the key this high termination rate isn't seen as failure at Bosch. It's framed as necessary success.

Speaker 1 7:39

Necessary success. I like that.

Speaker 2 7:44

They explicitly say they cannot afford to waste precious resources developing things people don't actually want or need. Their culture tracks progress, not just by activity you know how busy people are but by the creation of evidence validating assumptions, proving market fit. And to do that you need clear, objective criteria at each gate. You need authoritative governance bodies willing to make those tough calls. You need to actually celebrate the learning that comes from termination, not punish it, and you need regular, rigorous portfolio reviews.

Speaker 1 8:12

That's a massive cultural shift for many places. Ok, moving to the second common failure poor KPI design that rewards bad behavior.

Speaker 2 8:22

Classic what you measure is what you get. Trap Sounds like Goodhart's law in action, right.

Speaker 1 8:26

You've nailed it. That's exactly it. As the economist Charles Goodhart famously said, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Speaker 2 8:34

Such a crucial point.

Speaker 1 8:35

It's profoundly true in innovation. Common examples we see all the time Measuring only the number of active projects. What happens? Inflated portfolios full of those zombie projects we just talked about. Right, because the incentive is just to have more projects.

Speaker 2 8:47

Precisely or tracking the supposed value of the innovation portfolio, which just encourages overestimation and, frankly, wishful thinking, or focusing only on stage gate advancement rates how quickly things move through. That just pressures teams to push weak projects forward rather than stopping them. We have genuinely seen leaders explicitly avoid terminating projects, not because they believed in them anymore, but simply because killing them would lower their active projects. Kpi.

Speaker 1 9:17

Wow, directly impacting their performance reviews, I imagine.

Speaker 2 9:20

Directly. It creates really perverse incentives that undermine the whole process.

Speaker 1 9:25

So, okay, if those are the pitfalls, how do you design KPIs that actually encourage the right behaviors, the ones that lead to real innovation success? What's the smart way to do it?

Speaker 2 9:34

The solution really lies in designing balanced systems. You need a mix of metrics that kind of counteract each other's potential negative effects.

Speaker 1 9:42

Okay, balance is key. How?

Speaker 2 9:44

For instance, if you do measure the number of projects in the pipeline, you absolutely must balance it with metrics like kill rates at each stage gate.

Speaker 1 9:51

Ah, okay, so volume plus efficiency.

Speaker 2 9:53

Exactly that immediately discourages hoarding those zombie projects, because leaders are also judged on the effectiveness of their filtering, not just the quantity. Another example measure revenue from new products, sure, but balance it with the capital efficiency of the innovation process. How much did you actually spend to get that revenue?

Speaker 1 10:11

So not just success, but cost-effective success.

Speaker 2 10:15

Precisely it encourages smarter bets, not just bigger ones.

Speaker 1 10:18

That makes a lot of sense pairing metrics.

Speaker 2 10:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:20

Okay, number three on the list of failures Strategic drift, Supporting projects outside innovation strategy scope. This sounds like that death by thousand paper cuts idea lots of small individual decisions that seem okay, but collectively they pull the whole organization way off course.

Speaker 2 10:37

That's a very, very accurate description and it's insidious, like you say, precisely because it happens so gradually it creeps up on you. Governance committees looking at projects one by one might approve things that seem perfectly reasonable, maybe even beneficial, in isolation.

Speaker 1 10:51

Makes sense at the time.

Speaker 2 10:52

Right, but without consistent, rigorous oversight and a really strong strategic filter applied across the portfolio, the overall portfolio becomes scattered, unfocused. You end up with this collection of disparate projects that, ok, maybe they're individually interesting, but together they achieve very little collective impact in any strategically important area. It just powerfully reinforces the idea that strategy has to come first. Without clear boundaries, clear guardrails based on strategy, your efforts just fragment. You risk becoming a jack of all trades, master of none in innovation.

Speaker 1 11:27

So if an organization listening recognizes this, they see that strategic drift happening. What's the practical solution? How do they get back on track?

Speaker 2 11:34

Well, effective governance here really requires regular discipline, strategic alignment, reviews and this isn't just about assessing the individual merit of a project. You know, is this a good idea?

Speaker 1 11:44

It's more than that Much more.

Speaker 2 11:46

It's about critically evaluating the coherence and the strategic fit of the entire portfolio. Does this mix of projects actually advance our strategy? This means first establishing crystal clear strategic boundaries for your innovation efforts. What are we going to innovate on? And, just as importantly, what are we not going to pursue?

Speaker 1 12:05

Saying no.

Speaker 2 12:05

Saying no strategically, Then you need to create explicit criteria that rigorously assess strategic alignment at every single gate. It has to be part of the checklist. Then implement regular portfolio reviews specifically designed to identify and correct drift. And, maybe the hardest part having the discipline, the courage to terminate projects that OK, maybe they're technically sound, maybe the team loves them, but they simply fall outside that renewed strategic focus.

Speaker 1 12:32

Courageous prioritization Sounds like a theme.

Speaker 2 12:34

It really is.

Speaker 1 12:35

And that strong emphasis on pruning, on saying no, leads us right into the fourth governance failure, resource starvation through poor portfolio pruning. If you don't prune, if you have too many projects, you just run out of the fuel, the money, the people to do any of them well, especially as costs go up later on.

Speaker 2 12:55

Exactly. This is just fundamental economics and innovation. Project costs don't just add up linearly, they increase exponentially as projects move through the stages. You know you might spend, say, $50,000 for some early research and concept validation, okay, then maybe $500,000 for prototyping and initial testing.

Speaker 1 13:13

Still manageable for many.

Speaker 2 13:14

Right, but then you're looking at $5 million maybe significantly more for commercial scale-up manufacturing setup market launch. The big bucks, the really big bucks, and one single poorly governed project that somehow makes it all the way to scale-up can easily consume the resources that could have funded 50, maybe even 100 promising early stage investigations.

Speaker 1 13:34

Yeah, that's a massive opportunity cost.

Speaker 2 13:36

Huge. It's not just the money wasted on that project, it's all the other potential winners you couldn't fund.

Speaker 1 13:41

So this resource starvation? It shows up in very visible ways at launch, doesn't it? Things like launch budgets spread way too thin, inadequate marketing, maybe sales teams who aren't properly trained.

Speaker 2 13:53

Precisely All of the above. You end up with what some call a paper launch rather than a real market assault. The product itself might be technically fine, maybe even great, but the commercial engine just isn't fueled properly to get it off the ground.

Speaker 1 14:08

So it just fizzles.

Speaker 2 14:08

It fizzles. So better resource governance demands that ruthless early stage termination we talked about the Bosch model to actively free up resources for the truly validated high potential projects. It also means implementing what are sometimes called exponential funding gates.

Speaker 1 14:25

Exponential funding.

Speaker 2 14:26

Yeah, where the financial commitment required to pass each gate increases dramatically. This forces really tough strategic decisions about where to place your bets. It naturally encourages portfolio concentration fewer but better funded projects and, critically, it means having protected commercialization reserves.

Speaker 1 14:42

Like a dedicated launch fund.

Speaker 2 14:51

Exactly Ring-fenced budgets specifically for launch activities, ensuring that when a project does successfully make it through, it gets the adequate funding needed to make a real impact in the market, not just limp across the finish line starve for cash.

Speaker 1 14:59

That makes incredible sense.

Speaker 2 15:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:01

Protect the winners. Ok, finally, number five inadequate final stage gate governance for launch readiness. This is it the last hurdle, the final checkpoint before you push the button and unleash this thing on the world. It sounds like even companies with pretty good development processes can really stumble badly right here at the end.

Speaker 2 15:19

They absolutely can and unfortunately often do. What we frequently see is that this final stage gate review, the one right before the commercial launch, is treated almost like a formality.

Speaker 1 15:28

Just ticking the box.

Speaker 2 15:29

Yeah, a box ticking exercise, maybe a celebratory meeting, rather than what it should be a rigorous, deep assessment of true commercial readiness. Yet this is arguably the most critical transition point in the whole journey You're moving from the internal world of development to the external reality of the market, and the source material we looked at identifies seven key launch readiness dimensions that must be systematically evaluated and governed at this final gate, not just glanced at, governed.

Speaker 1 15:59

Seven dimensions. Okay, can you walk us through those? What are they and what are the practical implications if you mess one up?

Speaker 2 16:05

Certainly. Let's break them down. First launch plan, governance and approval. This isn't just about having a plan. It's ensuring it's comprehensive, has clear objectives, realistic timelines, assigned owners, budget, the works.

Speaker 1 16:17

If it's rushed.

Speaker 2 16:18

If it's rushed, you get misaligned efforts, confusion and lots of reactive firefighting right after launch Chaos. Second, marketing, collateral and regulatory compliance governance Validating all your messaging is compelling, accurate and, crucially, adheres to all necessary regulations Think legal industry standards.

Speaker 1 16:36

Skipping, that sounds expensive.

Speaker 2 16:38

Very Recalls fines, reputational damage, even lawsuits. Third sales enablement, governance and training validation this is key. And training validation this is key, Confirming your sales teams aren't just informed about the product, but can effectively sell its value, handle objections, close deals, and this needs validation, testing, role-playing certification. Because if they can't sell it, Exactly the best product just sits there. Fourth, customer support readiness governance Ensuring your tech support. Your service teams are equipped to handle the complexity of the new product and anticipated customer questions or issues.

Speaker 1 17:12

Bad support kills good products.

Speaker 2 17:14

Quickly erodes trust absolutely. Fifth, supply chain and distribution governance. Validating manufacturing, logistics inventory distribution channels. Are they truly ready for the initial launch volumes? Can they scale if needed?

Speaker 1 17:27

Can you actually deliver Right?

Seven Launch Readiness Dimensions

Speaker 2 17:29

Can't deliver, demand dies. Sixth competitive response, preparation, governance, thinking ahead, anticipating how your competitors will react because they will and having plans ready to counter their moves.

Speaker 1 17:41

Don't get caught flat-footed.

Speaker 2 17:42

You need that strategic foresight. And finally, seventh, post-launch monitoring and adjustment governance Establishing clear systems before launch for tracking actual market performance, gathering real customer feedback rapidly and having mechanisms to make quick course corrections.

Speaker 1 18:00

Because launch isn't the end.

Speaker 2 18:02

It's just the beginning. Continuous adaptation is absolutely key. Without proper rigorous governance across all seven of these dimensions, even the most brilliantly developed product can just fail spectacularly at launch because it wasn't truly ready for the market reality.

Speaker 1 18:17

Wow. Those seven points alone are incredibly valuable A checklist every launch team needs. Okay, so we've walked through the five big pitfalls. Now the million-dollar question how do organizations move away from these common failures? How do they build truly effective, resilient innovation governance systems that actually drive consistent success?

Speaker 2 18:37

Right, and the good news is, the sources offer some very clear, very actionable design principles. They give us a kind of roadmap for turning things around.

Speaker 1 18:45

Okay, what are those guiding principles? How do we build better governance?

Speaker 2 18:48

Firstly, they emphasize creating gates with teeth rather than what they call hollow gates.

Speaker 1 18:53

Gates with teeth. I like that image. What does it mean?

Building Better Governance Systems

Speaker 2 18:55

It means establishing crystal clear go-kill decision authority at each gate. Who makes the call? No ambiguity. It means assembling truly cross-functional gatekeeper teams, not just R&D, not just marketing, but finance, operations, sales strategy.

Speaker 1 19:11

The whole picture.

Speaker 2 19:12

The whole picture. It requires implementing predetermined objective decision criteria that everyone knows and agrees to beforehand. No shifting goalposts. Crucially, funding must be tied directly to these gate decisions. Passing a gate unlocks the next tranche of funding. Failing means funding stops.

Speaker 1 19:31

Real consequences.

Speaker 2 19:32

Real consequences and, finally, securing unwavering senior management commitment. They have to back the tough decisions, including termination, even when it's politically difficult. These rigorous gates, these gates with teeth, they're specifically designed to tackle those root causes of failure. We've discussed ensuring alignment, focus, validated value, viable business models, solid prototyping, confirmed scale-up readiness. Before you pour in the big money.

Speaker 1 19:56

It's like quality control for innovation investment.

Speaker 2 19:58

That's a great way to put it.

Speaker 1 19:59

And what about those tricky KPIs we talked about, the ones that can mess things up? How do we fix that Right?

Speaker 2 20:04

The second principle is to design balanced KPI systems and the key that Right. The second principle is to design balanced KPI systems and the key here is balanced. The recommendation isn't to create these overwhelming dashboards with, you know, hundreds of metrics nobody understands.

Speaker 1 20:17

Information overload.

Speaker 2 20:18

Exactly. Instead, select maybe five to eight carefully chosen, highly impactful KPIs.

Speaker 1 20:24

Okay, what kinds?

Speaker 2 20:25

You need a mix Metrics for pipeline health things like idea conversion rates, the strength of your early stage funnel, then portfolio performance metrics like revenue from new products, maybe the ROI on innovation spend, the overall risk of balance in your portfolio and, importantly, system health metrics, Things like innovation culture indices, maybe scores for cross-functional collaboration. How healthy is the innovation engine itself?

Speaker 1 20:50

Interesting Beyond just project outcomes.

Speaker 2 20:52

Yes, and crucially, you need to implement anti-gaming measures Using those paired indicators we discussed, where one metric balances another. Also maybe rotating metrics periodically so people don't just optimize for the same thing forever and always, integrating qualitative context alongside the numbers. Get the story behind the data.

Speaker 1 21:11

Get the full picture. That makes sense, okay. Finally, how do the project level and the portfolio level governance really work together, not just on paper but in practice, to stop those resource fights and make sure launches are high quality?

Speaker 2 21:25

That's the third principle Integrate portfolio and project governance. Make them talk to each other constantly. This means gate decisions effectively become a two-part process. First you evaluate the individual project's viability against its own criteria. You know, is this project technically sound? Does it meet the need? Is the business case there?

Speaker 1 21:43

The project level check.

Speaker 2 21:44

Right. But then, immediately after you conduct a portfolio level prioritization Okay, this project passed its gate, but how does it stack up against other projects competing for the same resources? This involves relative ranking, making strategic resource allocation choices, assessing the overall balance of your portfolio, risk, market segments, timelines and one final verification of strategic alignment.

Speaker 1 22:10

So it's not just, is this good?

Speaker 2 22:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:12

But is this good for us right now, given everything else?

Speaker 2 22:14

Precisely this integrated approach is vital. It directly tackles those resource conflicts and starvation issues that so often undermine launch quality. You're not just approving a good project. You're approving a good project that fits strategically and financially into your overall plan.

Speaker 1 22:29

And the sources. They specifically mention this do-it-with-you approach. That sounds different from just hiring consultants to drop off a new process binder. It sounds like helping organizations actually build these capabilities internally.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Speaker 2 22:41

It truly is, and that's a huge distinction. This approach emphasizes sustainable improvement. It's all about embedding these robust governance capabilities into an organization's actual day-to-day operations, making it just part of how things are done. And, critically, it's not a one-size-fits-all template. It has to reflect your specific industry needs, your unique company culture, your distinct strategic goals. The aim is that the governance system is genuinely owned, understood and maintained by the people who use it every day, not seen as some external process forced upon them. That's how you get lasting change.

Speaker 1 23:14

This deep dive has really hammered home how innovation governance isn't just some you know, administrative task. It is the critical, often unseen link that really determines whether your innovation investments actually deliver real commercial returns.

Speaker 2 23:28

The evidence we've discussed couldn't be clearer. Most things called launch failures are pretty unequivocally governance failures that were made much, much earlier in the innovation journey. And the cost? It goes way beyond just the disappointment of one product failing. It creates this kind of pervasive cultural cynicism about innovation within the organization. It misallocates precious resources, time, money, talent and ultimately it undermines your competitive advantage.

Speaker 1 23:54

But conversely, the benefits of getting governance right, of having strong, disciplined systems. They are dramatic, measurable Companies that effectively implement those gates with teeth. They achieve success rates in the marketplace that are 2.5 times higher than their peers without them.

Speaker 2 24:10

Two and a half times. That's significant.

Speaker 1 24:11

Huge and top performing innovators, the ones who really master governance. They generate a staggering 50 percent half of their five year sales from new products.

Speaker 2 24:20

It really does weave together all those essential elements of successful innovation the culture, the strategy, the value propositions, the business models, the prototyping, scale up, launch. Weaves them into a coherent, powerful system that drives repeatable success, not just occasional luck.

Speaker 1 24:40

Yeah, repeatable success.

Speaker 2 24:42

So I think the key takeaway here for you, our listener, is pretty profound Good governance isn't about creating barriers or stifling creativity. It's actually the opposite. It's about creating robust, clear frameworks that enable innovation to flourish, to be focused and, crucially, to deliver consistent commercial value. The question really isn't whether your organization will face governance challenges, because every single organization does. The real question is whether you'll address them proactively and systematically, or reactively, you know, after a costly failure.

Speaker 1 25:10

And the proactive approach delivers far better returns.

Speaker 2 25:12

Far, far better. Returns every time.

Speaker 1 25:15

So that really raises an important question for you. Listening right now how does governance truly function in your innovation process today, as you heard us talk through those five failures, did any resonate? Do you recognize maybe some of those zombie projects shuffling around, or perhaps KPIs that might be subtly encouraging the wrong things? It's certainly something worth reflecting on, maybe discussing with your teams. And that brings us to the end of another deep dive. If you are experiencing governance challenges in your innovation process or if you're just looking for ways to build these critical capabilities more effectively within your organization, we absolutely encourage you to learn more about Arkaro services. You can find more information about how we help B2B executives like you at Arkaro. com. That's A-R-K-A-R-O dot com, and also on LinkedIn. And if you'd perhaps like a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your specific situation and challenges, feel free to email Mark Blackwell directly. His email is . Thank you so much for listening to the deep dive from Arkaro Insights and please, if you found this deep dive helpful, share it with colleagues who might also benefit.