When good process becomes innovation’s silent killer

A competitor just grew their revenue by 90 percent with a single product launch. Could that breakthrough idea have survived your approval process?

Last year, a consumer goods client wrestled with a harsh reality: their products were losing relevance, and they lacked the budget for major capital investment. Then their main competitor launched a breakthrough product – using technology our client believed they led in. The result? A 90 percent revenue surge.

The wake-up call was clear: while our client had been refining their processes, their competitor had been refining their courage.

The three innovation assassins hiding in plain sight

Working inside this company revealed three systematic creativity killers that we see across industries:

• The summary execution problem: Ideas seen as too radical, challenging to strategy or off-brand were dismissed without genuine evaluation. The question wasn’t “What if this worked?” but “Why would this work?”
• The departmental veto power: Any function could shut down an idea – often on behalf of another. R&D rejected concepts assuming Marketing wouldn’t approve them. Marketing dismissed ideas claiming Production couldn’t deliver. Each department became a gatekeeper, but none owned the missed opportunities.
• The competitor courage gap: While our client built ever-tighter approval processes to manage risk, their competitors were making bold bets. You don’t win by being more cautious than those who are being more creative.

The hidden cost of innovation paralysis

The direct market impact was hard to quantify, but the systemic damage was clear: the R&D department had shrunk into incremental improvement mode, talented people were leaving for more dynamic environments, and the company was becoming invisible to consumers exploring new experiences.

The competitor’s 90 percent revenue growth wasn’t just a success story – it was a mirror showing what innovation velocity could achieve. Our Brand Impact Index shows that top-performing brands grow profit up to three times faster than competitors, proving that bold innovation delivers measurable commercial advantage.

Breaking the process prison

Most innovation-stifling processes aren’t designed to kill ideas. They’re built to manage risk, ensure quality, and maintain efficiency. The problem? They succeed too well.

Stringent criteria and complex approval chains create an unintended incentive: only safe, incremental ideas survive. Yet our Brand Impact Index research shows that only 35 percent of leaders are seeing ROI from their innovation investments – suggesting that many are still playing it too safe and missing out on breakthrough growth.

Breakthrough concepts – uncertain and cross-functional by nature – get filtered out before they reach decision-makers. Often, innovators don’t even bother submitting them. The process is too slow, too risky, and too draining.

The most damaging patterns:

• Functions making decisions on behalf of others, based on outdated assumptions.
• Innovators self-censoring, submitting only ‘safe’ ideas engineered to pass the process.

The collaborative breakthrough method

Our solution was simple: force collaboration before evaluation.

We designed a four-day cross-functional workshop, bringing together teams across product R&D, packaging, production, logistics, and marketing. Everyone worked on the same challenges, at the same time.

Instead of ideas moving through sequential filters, every function helped shape and refine them together.

Some of the results:

• Previously ‘killed’ ideas resurfaced and gained traction
• Functions that once blocked ideas began collaborating on solutions
• Hundreds of new concepts emerged – many leveraging existing assets in unexpected ways
• New ideas were tested with consumer audiences immediately.

Several of the ideas showed incredible potential. One simple change to an existing product unlocked a new market for the client that was projected to generate €25m on an annual basis.

Most importantly, the cross-functional team learnt a new way of collaborating in early-stage innovation that survives to this day, driven by the increase in engagement, efficiency, and quality output.

We also added competitor analysis and real-time consumer testing. Some ideas that were loved internally, failed with consumers – a powerful reminder that internal enthusiasm isn’t market validation.

The diagnostic question every consumer goods leader should ask

If your main competitor launched their breakthrough product tomorrow, would that idea have survived your current innovation process?

If the honest answer is “probably not,” you’re not managing innovation risk – you’re guaranteeing innovation failure. And with consumers three times more likely to pay a premium for brands that deliver across five growth components – including intelligent innovation and customer centricity – the cost of inaction is rising fast.

Three immediate actions to unlock innovation velocity

1. End single-function vetoes: Require cross-functional input before any idea is rejected. If production has concerns about a marketing concept, bring them together to solve it.
2. Engage senior leaders early: Involve leadership at the start – not just at the final approval stage. Early sponsorship helps good ideas survive middle-management risk aversion.
3. Flip the risk question: Instead of asking “What could go wrong?” start with “What could go right – and how do we test it quickly?”

The organisations that most need breakthrough innovation are often the least equipped to deliver it. Success breeds process. Process breeds caution. Caution breeds irrelevance.

But here’s the opportunity: while competitors build more barriers, you can build more bridges – connecting functions, accelerating ideas, and unlocking future possibilities.

Our client didn’t transform overnight. Changing innovation culture is harder than changing process. But they did redesign their products to appeal to new demographics – proving that collaborative innovation can thrive within existing constraints. To this day the client regularly schedules these cross functional innovation workshops to stimulate and embed collaboration and spark new inventions

The question isn’t whether your organisation can innovate. It’s whether your processes will let it.