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Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

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THE INNOVATIVE ORGANIZATION 345<br />

organization - wide and that actually precipitates hard decisions<br />

that will get implemented. Resource allocation is indispensable<br />

to a viable innovative organization because it provides a way to<br />

make sure that the best options are funded. There are limited<br />

resources in any organization, and funding low - yield offerings,<br />

be they existing or proposed, will suck resources away from offerings<br />

that could mean the future.<br />

However, inserting hard - nosed resource allocation into an<br />

organization is not easy. Managers are used to having proposals<br />

evaluated in a limited context and can be threatened by a<br />

broader competitive set in which the power of their silo units is<br />

muted. Even the basic elements, such as common criteria and<br />

processes discussed in Chapter Seven , are not easy to accept.<br />

An effective allocation process should have several characteristics.<br />

It should be both clear so that managers know when<br />

and how to access it and it should be supported by a team with<br />

credibility so that decisions will be respected. It should have<br />

an organization - wide scope; a proposed new offering should<br />

compete with others across the organization. If the evaluation<br />

lacks a broad scope, then inevitably some inferior options will<br />

be funded at the expense of better choices that lacked the<br />

right context or political backing. Finally, it should compare<br />

new offerings with existing ones. The key can be to stop or<br />

slow down resources going to tired businesses that have limited<br />

growth potential or, worse, are realistically only able to reduce<br />

an inevitable decline.<br />

Bias Against the New Business<br />

There is nearly <strong>always</strong> a signifi cant bias toward funding existing<br />

businesses. Chapter Seven discussed the personal and professional<br />

reasons to cling to a business that is fading and has little<br />

chance of recovering. However, even successful core businesses<br />

can stand in the way of a new offering with the potential to<br />

transform a market getting adequate funding. There will be

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