The Competitive Value Innovation Guide (CViG) acts as an innovation compass showing the road ahead to achieve market success. It starts from the premise that a company’s innovation is determined and directed by its executives, including the CEO, who drive the company day by day based on their beliefs and knowledge.

The Competitive Value Innovation Guide is a tool that:

• probes the leadership mindset and captures its views of the company’s business models and its position vis-à-vis targeted competitors in the market;
• incites executives to align on what really matters to sustain business growth or avoid decline;
• determines reality-based competitive imperatives and helps executives select the innovation strategies and specific programs that need be pursued;
• shows where changes must be made in how innovation is being managed in the company;
• leverages the power of HR and corporate communications to create and maintain a culture of entrepreneurship;
• highlights what works and what does not, allowing the leadership to make timely adjustments for ensuring high returns on their corporate innovation investments.

The CViG captures the corporate leadership knowledge through an on-line questionnaire that determine how the leadership—individually and as a group—sees the organization and its business models, sets its goals, and perceives its markets. Other questions discover how well the executives know their competitors; nurture a culture of innovation; how the company collaborates, and how it manages its innovation activities. It does so by convincing company leaders to address fundamental questions, such as: Do you ...

• address business innovation comprehensively?
• consider business innovation competitively?
• manage business innovation methodically?
• project-structure your innovation activities?
• decide strategically or do you do what a customer tells you?
• measure and evaluate your innovation activities?
• have a culture of entrepreneurship encouraging innovation?
• collaborate within your ecosystem for business success in your targeted markets?
• manage your life cycle stage of evolution methodically?

Successful innovative companies:

• innovate with purpose;
• have well-defined innovation strategies;
• have a structured innovation process;
• innovate in business models;
• pursue a greater proportion of breakthrough and radical innovations;
• collaborate on critical aspects of innovation;
• generate greater percentage of revenues from new products or services;
• are led by ambitious, risk-taking leadership teams that are well aligned and act collectively to achieve the corporate goals. Such innovative leaders are very competitive, are willing to take risks, are capable of shifting focus from present to future, and are bold in their goals—e.g., acquiring new markets, new business models, or new industry platforms.

The CViG tool can be used as:

• Leadership Tool , which zeroes on critical corporate issues, points to competitive imperatives, determines executive misalignments and determines areas for competitive improvement
• Investor’s Due-Diligence Tool, which determines likelihood of investment success and corporate improvement needs by discovering deep-seated management views, by pinpointing to competitive weaknesses and by assessing corporate innovation management capabilities
• Executive Team Management Tool, which points to executive misalignment issues, maps roadwork ahead and unifies the team behind common goals.
• Regional / Sectorial Industry Tool, which provides insightful industry performance analyses necessary to determine areas of weakness and strength, qualifies innovation management capabilities and shows improvement needs

• Investors (angels, VCs, etc.) and financial institutions aiming to enhance returns on their investments by selecting and supporting only meritorious companies
• Government agencies aiming to save operation costs while maximizing value of their programs supporting innovation in industry and education sectors
• Regional (provincial) development agencies determined to enhance the outcomes of their development investments while reducing waste and operational costs
• Business management consulting companies and business intelligence S/W companies requiring better tools and service solutions for enhancing value of their offerings to market and boosting revenues
• Large corporations attempting to develop new business lines and avoid decline
• Medium and small size enterprises driving for growth and enhanced competitive positions in the face of limited financial capabilities
• Universities and colleges as well as not for profit organizations involved in training business and engineering managers or in entrepreneurial support activities.