corporate innovation

How to Set Up a Corporate Innovation Outpost That Works

This is the fourth in a series about corporate innovation co-authored with Steve Blank. Steve and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. Read part one on The Evolution of Corporate R&D, part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley, and part three The 6 Decisions to Make Before Setting up an Innovation Outpost.

In our last post, we addressed the six key questions that senior management should address to determine if an Innovation Outpost makes sense for a company. If the answer is yes, here’s a step-by-step guide to help set one up.

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How to Avoid Innovation Theater: The Six Decisions To Make Before Establishing an Innovation Outpost

This is the third in a series on the changing models of corporate innovation co-authored with Steve Blank. Steve and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D and part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. 

Corporate Leadership’s Innovation Outpost Decision Process


Today, large companies are creating Innovation Outposts in Innovation Clusters like Silicon Valley in order to tap into the clusters’ innovation ecosystems. These corporate Innovation Outposts monitor Silicon Valley for new innovative technologies and/or companies (as emerging threats or potential tools for disruption) and then take advantage of these innovations by creating new products or investing in startups.

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Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley – Going to Where the Action Is

This is the second in a series on the changing models of corporate innovation co-authored with Steve Blank. Steve and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D.

Innovation and R&D Outposts


For decades, large companies (see Figure 1 below) have set up R&D labs outside their corporate headquarters, often in foreign countries, in spite of having a large home market with lots local R&D talent. IBM’s research center in Zurich, GM’s research center in Israel, Toyota in the U.S are examples.

These remote R&D labs offered companies four benefits.

  • They enabled companies to comply with local government laws – for example, to allow foreign subsidiaries to transfer manufacturing technology from the U.S. parent company while providing technical services for foreign customers
  • They improved their penetration of local and regional markets by adapting their products to the country or region
  • They helped to globalize their innovation cycle and tap foreign expertise and resources
  • They let companies develop products to launch in world markets simultaneously

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Innovation Outposts and The Evolution of Corporate R&D

I first met Steve Blank when he started his enterprise software company Epiphany. Steve has spent 21 years as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in eight startups and the last 13 years as an educator – currently teaching entrepreneurship at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and NYU. Steve and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. His insights about how corporations are adopting Lean Startup will be at the core of this series of four co-authored blog posts.

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Corporate Venture Capital’s Role in Innovation (Part 5): Crucial Lessons to Strengthen CVC Success

My previous post in the corporate venture capital (CVC) series provided a broad historical perspective on the sector. In this post I review important lessons learned by CVCs that have been operating for many years and several economic cycles and best practices being used by newer CVCs. The lessons in this post would be of value to CVCs looking for best practices and corporate leaders whose companies have already established venture organizations or are considering doing so as part of enabling innovation.

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