Working as Business Innovation Manager

In a business environment ever more complex and competitive, it can be a significant challenge for organizations to give rapid answers to market changes. This involves issues like establishing a web of relations that exceeds the boundaries of the firm, and creating, organizing and managing the virtual links between the firm, its employees, external collaborators, suppliers, and customers.
Innovation is not only about developing a new product or service: innovation embraces all business processes. It can be about either process or organizational innovation, in order to foster business growth by entering new markets and/or expanding existing ones, by introducing new and better products and services and implementing new ways of working. Thus in large companies the need has emerged to have a specific role devoted to the promotion and management of innovation, by creating the ad hoc position of Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), in Italy better labeled as Business Innovation Manager (BIM).

That of the manager of innovation is an established company position in Anglo-Saxon countries which is currently emerging also in the Italian and European context. It originates from the evolution of other functional or process-related corporate functions, depending on the driving factor of innovation within the firm. According to this perspective, the BIM pushes business innovation through good strategic thinking and a related ability for economic and financial planning. This job profile calls for good organizational capabilities, in order to manage change and negotiate the projects and processes of innovation in a structured and continuous way, by favoring the emergence of a creative and forthcoming company environment. He/she must also possess high level marketing skills, in order to locate gaps in the existing supply range, stimulate the generation of new ideas and the market transfer of technological innovations, so that they can generate value for the customer and the firm. As corollary, a solid knowledge of ICT and its potential to establish internal and external collaborations complete the challenging profile of a desirable BIM. Over the last year, a research study conducted by SDA Bocconi School of Management, in collaboration with Progetti Manageriali (a service company owned by Federmanager), has looked into the skills required to fill this new job profile and considered whether existing managerial profiles managing innovation processes possess them. The study highlighted certain areas of comparative weakness with respect to the management of teams and external relations, in the dynamic management of core competence and competitive intelligence, and in the organization of the innovation process in a multi-project environment. The question of whichone will tend to be the career path for this new job position remains open, especially in Italy where managerial careers tend to be strictly vertical and specialized.