It’s easy to think of innovation as something that happens only in the lab or in small start-ups. Yet innovation is a key component of every business strategy. In fact, the term “innovation” itself derives from the Latin word meaning “to find again.” Companies need to continually reinvent themselves to remain competitive. They do this by developing new products, services, and ways of doing things.

Companies need an innovation strategy because innovation is a complex undertaking. In addition to the usual suspects—technology, people, and capital—innovations depend on a host of other factors, including organizational structure, culture, and the nature of competition. Most important, however, is the innovation system itself: the set of interrelated activities, structures, and processes that govern how a company goes about searching for novel problems and solutions.