--- title: Innovation Management – What It Is And Is Not | Mobileum description: Innovation is not just inspiration and creativity. Indeed, the old saying proves true - innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  image: https://blog.mobileum.com/hs-fs/file-386427350-jpg/Blog/Authors/joao_resende.jpg --- ![Loader](https://blog.mobileum.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/Marketplace/Blog%20Template%20-%20psdtohubspot/mobileum-blog-2025/assets/img/loader.gif) - [Back to Mobileum.com](https://www.mobileum.com) - Subscribe **![joao_resende](https://blog.mobileum.com/hs-fs/file-386427350-jpg/Blog/Authors/joao_resende.jpg?width=206&name=joao_resende.jpg)**   When people think of “innovation”, Einstein’s E = MC2 or Jobs’ iPhone frequently come to mind. The simplicity and brilliance of these solutions offer a very attractive vision of innovation. It is also a very wrong one. Innovation is not just inspiration and creativity. Indeed, the old saying proves true - innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Often, innovation brings confusion, doubt, trial-and-error, ad nausea discussions over details, and sleepless nights. Lots of hard work is required to progress from idea to practice, into actual added value to the organization. Innovation Management is also a complex, heavily researched subject with plenty of theories, frameworks, and all-too-often, diverging guidance.  Notwithstanding, there are two points I firmly believe: - Innovation aims to provide solutions that are better than those previously available yet difficult to reproduce. As a result, Innovation Management can never be reduced to standard recipes or prescriptions, as these are contrary to the very nature of innovation. - Take with a grain of salt those methods focusing too much on measurement and tight monitoring of business intermediate variables, easier to control, but supposedly correlated with the degree of Innovation. I do not question the merits of these approaches. The challenge is to make sure we do not mistake Innovation Generation with Innovation Management, i.e., the end with the means. Indeed, the only absolute measure of innovation within an organization is results - its growth, its market share, its profitability, and its stakeholders’ level of satisfaction. **Innovation Management: Not an Oxymoron** Building processes for tight monitoring and “control” of innovation gives us a comfortable feeling, that we are "managing" innovation effectively. However, control and comfort are incompatible with innovation.  Innovation involves anxiety, ingenuity, art, and uncertainty. Does that mean there's nothing we can do to promote innovation by creating favorable conditions for the transformation of creativity into value-generating Innovations? Of course we can! Innovation Management should focus on factors that allow innovation to flourish while generating and capturing its value, such as the following: - Mechanisms of active listening close to actual and prospective customers. - Incentives geared towards the development, recognition, and exploitation of ideas into products, instead of incentives focused on idea generation. For example, instead of promising financial bonuses for innovative ideas, create the conditions and the recognition mechanisms for your employees to develop promising ideas into actual innovative products and services. - Multidisciplinary teams that combine development with marketing, commercial, and operational areas. These teams will offer a better overall view of the organization and the challenges to overcome, as well as the means for more encompassing solutions. Maximize their performance by setting up the tools and a culture of active collaboration and communication across the organization. - A culture of fail-fast, fail- cheap. With innovation, errors should not be a surprise and much less a stain in one’s career. The prize ought to be on trying, learning, and creating; not on compliance. This comes hand-in-hand with a culture of informed risk-taking and the maturity of a risk management practice. **Innovation @ WeDo Technologies** At WeDo Technologies, innovation is paramount to our success and that of our customers. [WeDo Technologies](http://www.wedotechnologies.com/)’ leadership in Business Assurance can only be achieved and maintained through constant innovation in our products. As mentioned earlier, the level of innovation at WeDo Technologies is mostly measured by the level of satisfaction of [our customers](http://www.wedotechnologies.com), our top and bottom lines, and our ability to attract and maintain talent. Fittingly enough, [Business Assurance](http://www.wedotechnologies.com) is about ensuring our customers’ business by providing them with the best tools and environment to evolve and innovate. Our flagship product, [Enterprise Business Assurance RAID](http://www.wedotechnologies.com/en/raid7), provides an enterprise platform that is a catalyst for innovation in our customers’ organizations. RAID provides a global view of business processes and a unified vision of the organization, as well as the ideal toolset for the analysis, sharing, and collaboration required by multidisciplinary teams from the various areas across the company. RAID monitors and controls the organization business processes, contributing to operational effectiveness and a more mature risk management practice. By ensuring our customers’ current business, RAID helps create an innovation friendly environment and fosters the development of future businesses. ### Subscribe to our Blog - Recent - Popular [How to Capture 5G Roaming Revenues with Real-Time Testing and Monitoring](https://blog.mobileum.com/how-to-capture-5g-roaming-revenues-with-real-time-testing-and-monitoring) [Direct-to-Device: Turn Satellite into Enterprise Service](https://blog.mobileum.com/direct-to-device-turn-satellite-into-enterprise-service) [Why Telecom’s Next Security Battle Will Be Won Inside the Conversation](https://blog.mobileum.com/voice-trust-under-siege-why-telecoms-next-security-battle-will-be-won-inside-the-conversation) [From Fraud to Sabotage: The New Threat of Weaponized SIM Farms](https://blog.mobileum.com/from-fraud-to-sabotage-the-new-threat-of-weaponized-sim-farms) [Scaling Private 5G: How CSPs Can Deliver Secure, Smart, and Service-Ready Networks](https://blog.mobileum.com/scaling-private-5g-how-csps-can-deliver-secure-smart-and-service-ready-networks) [Validating 5G SA Roaming Readiness Through SEPP and Interface Testing](https://blog.mobileum.com/validating-5g-sa-roaming-readiness-through-sepp-and-interface-testing) ### Posts by Topic - [Security & Risk  (76)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/security-risk) - [Fraud Management (69)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/fraud-management) - [5G (41)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/5g) - [Network & Connectivity (36)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/network-connectivity) - [Revenue Assurance (36)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/revenue-assurance) - [Risk Management (34)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/risk-management) - [BSS/OSS  (24)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/bss-oss) - [Technology Evolution & Innovation (22)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/technology-evolution-innovation) - [Telecom Trends (22)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/telecom-trends) - [AI & Analytics (21)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/ai-analytics) - [DNA (Deep Network Analytics)  (20)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/dna-deep-network-analytics) - [AI/ML  (14)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/ai-ml) - [Customer Experience (12)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/customer-experience) - [Data Monetization (11)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/data-monetization) - [Roaming (10)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/roaming) - [IoT  (8)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/iot) - [Internet of Things (IoT) (7)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/internet-of-things-iot) - [Regulatory & Compliance  (7)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/regulatory-compliance) - [eSIM (6)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/esim) - [Debt Collection (4)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/debt-collection) - [Satellite Connectivity  (4)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/satellite-connectivity) - [Incentive Compensation (3)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/incentive-compensation) - [Private Networks (3)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/private-networks) - [VoLTE (3)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/volte) - [NFV (Network Functions Virtualization)  (2)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/nfv-network-functions-virtualization) - [Security (2)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/security) - [Advanced Analytics (1)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/advanced-analytics) - [Machine Learning (1)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/machine-learning) - [Mobile Money (1)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/mobile-money) - [RPA (Robotic Process Automation)  (1)](https://blog.mobileum.com/topic/rpa-robotic-process-automation) #### Give us your comments ### Let us know what you thought about this article ## You may also like: ## [Why Identity Protection Must Be a Top 2020 Priority](https://blog.mobileum.com/why-identity-protection-must-be-a-top-2020-priority) According to the US FTC’s 2019 report on identity theft and fraud, while there was a slight dip in previous years, rates... ## [2020 Trends: Threats and Opportunities](https://blog.mobileum.com/2020-trends-threats-and-opportunities) Never have Telecom operators had so much data and such a wide range of technologies available for exploring its valuable... ## [WeMeet Americas 2019 - No Ordinary Event](https://blog.mobileum.com/wemeet-americas-2019-no-ordinary-event) Attending industry conferences can become tedious if you go to as many as I do each year. 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