The Corporate Innovator’s Playbook
Turning Ideas Into Profits
Your company generates plenty of good ideas, but how many of them have been turned into businesses that move the revenue needle?
This is the key challenge facing all corporate innovation efforts—how to scale a promising idea into a global business. The Corporate Innovator’s Playbook provides the recipe.
Paul Campbell and Steffen Bartschat are practitioners who have led corporate innovation programs for the last decade in one of the world’s premier innovation hubs, Silicon Valley. While solving their own internal challenges, they have also keenly observed the successes (and failures) of their corporate peers and the fast-moving world of startups.
They’ve translated the body of their experiences into the Innovation Canvas, a framework to assess and improve corporate innovation programs. The Innovation Canvas describes the key elements of successful innovation programs and the synergies that turn them into growth factories. The goal is to create a hybrid process, combining the best of two cultures—startup agility and corporate scale.
As global competition accelerates in the age of AI, developing an efficient innovation funnel is more critical than ever. This book delivers hands-on advice to on-the-ground teams, driving measurable impact within their organization.
Reviews
For nearly two decades, I’ve worked hand-in-hand with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies to bring the innovative mindset from Silicon Valley to the global stage. The Corporate Innovator’s Playbook is a must-read for any executive serious about driving real impact through innovation. Paul and Steffen offer a clear and practical roadmap for turning ideas into results.
Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO, Plug and Play
The Corporate Innovator’s Playbook provides a comprehensive overview of different open innovation approaches, helping corporates to navigate the jungle and choose wisely the best approach(es) for their company.
Yvonne Lutsch, Investment Director, Lam Capital, formerly Investment Principal at Bosch Ventures, and Director of Technology Scouting and Business Development at Bosch Silicon Valley
Since innovation is becoming more and more a key driver of success, finding effective ways to innovate is of paramount importance. Campbell and Bartschat provide a comprehensive and up-to-date perspective on how successful innovation can be fostered in the corporate context, identifying both the pitfalls to avoid and the practices to nurture.
Paul Pfleiderer, Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business
This book is an important addition to the corporate innovator’s library, providing practical advice and lessons learned not just on how to generate new product ideas, but also how to turn them into sustainable new businesses that move the revenue needle.
Ilya Strebulaev, Stanford GSB Professor and coauthor of bestseller, The Venture Mindset
The Corporate Innovator’s Playbook offers a real-world guide for generating ideas and turning them into impactful and profitable products and services. Paul Campbell and Steffen Bartschat reveal effective ways to deal with the realities of organizational culture, politics, and incentive design that are tailored for complex enterprises.
Bill Cecil, former head of Technology and Business Scouting, State Farm
The Corporate Innovators Playbook offers hard-won insight and best practices to create innovation teams that can add lasting value. The Innovation Canvas described in the book will be a great tool for all companies, whether they are just starting out in innovation or have a more mature team!
Frankie James, Principal, FJ Mobility Innovation and former Director of External Innovation, General Motors