Everyone’s talking about innovation right now. Technology is no longer just an enabler, it has become the way you do business. But, technology innovation moves faster than companies can keep up with. It always has and it always will.

So how can we get our internal teams to keep up? Innovation is bang on-trend at the moment, but what does ‘innovating’ actually mean? To be frank, a lot of the big players are getting it all wrong. They’re opening ‘Innovation Hubs’, filling them with a team in sandals, flip-flops and perhaps a few high priced consultants with great presentations… then they are hoping that the ‘innovation’ somehow finds its way back into the wider business… Sounds crazy to me.

Perhaps that’s a little harsh, but the truth business leaders need to accept is that you can’t out-innovate the market in the long term. So we shouldn’t waste our time trying! The market will always move faster than you can. No matter how good your internal teams are, you will never have the monopoly on all the good people. In Silicon Valley for example, there are trillions of VC dollars chasing thousands of startups who are chomping at the bit, ready to eat right into your market share. Its simple laws of probability.

Big companies might be looking outside at the market, but mostly they’re looking inward for their solutions. They are presuming that because they know the inner workings of their organisation, its culture, its history and procedures, they are best placed to develop innovations that can meet their ever-increasing customer demands. Coupled with this, middle management structure just kills good ideas. You can hear it now “… focus on this quarter and stick to the job you were employed to do!” Both these things hold companies back – in some respects they’d be better off not even trying!

The market is a very big place and anyone and everyone is creating new solutions. And that person sitting in a garage spending all their time and effort thinking about the quickest way to send payments from person to person might just be the one to do it. Or the little 20 person outfit you never heard of may just find a way to give your customers what you can’t.

What’s the best bet to place? For me, business leaders need to understand what’s out there. Discover what’s possible. You need to talk to VCs, entrepreneurs, startups, talk to academic communities – it’s the only way you’ll find out what is possible. You’ve got to find a way to understand what’s going on in the world outside your own company. And you need to do it fast.

I was out in Silicon Valley with the executive team of a challenger bank earlier this year and they said to me that they didn’t know 90% of the solutions we showed them even existed! Only once you know what is possible can you start to work out which solutions best fit with what your company needs, how they best solve your problems and give your customers what they want. After you’ve worked that out, you need to implement them into your business – make it happen.

Ok, perhaps this is easier said than done, but there are businesses who are doing it. And doing it really well. These are the big companies that will win in the long run. The others will end up keeping Blockbuster company in the history books…