StederNC LLC provides Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Sales Officer consulting services with a particular focus on helping tech and non-tech companies grow sales and profits by making better future product and services decisions, an area we call Product Decisions for Innovation. Our favorite definition of innovation is from Dr. Geoffrey C. Nicholson formerly of 3M who stated “Research and development is the transformation of money into knowledge. Innovation is a transfer of knowledge into money." Remember, innovations don’t have to be miracles. Small but significant ways to use your company’s smarts to improve the wellbeing of your customers are welcome. Your customers want to pay you more money for these improvements. So how do you get there more efficiently? How do you let the creative juices flow through your company but manage the risk in product & service changes? Our recommendations fall into three categories: Manage Every company should implement a business decision process from product ideas to launch. This business process should be customized for your company to minimize bureaucracy with a defined pathway to evaluate product ideas along standard guidelines. Inspire The engagement of employees in innovation is critical to sustainable success. The key to inspiring an innovation culture is empowering a cross functional team of employees with the freedom to vet ideas and confirm the customer value of future products while detailing the risks. Define Finally, companies need to document and communicate their product pipeline with estimated ROI. An innovation process helps executives look forward into the crystal ball with less risk and more information. With a defined innovation process, this is a difficult task made manageable.