Constant innovation success ensures the long-term success of the company, excellent routine the short-term success. Innovation is organic, routine mechanistic. Their differences cause the innovation-routine conflict. Usually the routine eats the innovations, excellent routine devours them. Here, companies can switch over and achieve constant innovation success through four success factors.

We identified the four success factors for constant innovation success in an exploratory meta-analysis using Statistical Engineering: market, institutionalization, innovation quality, and venture financing.

Routine leads to concentration on the existing market and to defend one’s own market position. On the other hand, innovation is based on market size, market dynamics and cooperation possibilities. Digital change shows this impressively. For example, it has hurt Nokia to defend its own market position when the iPhone came.

Institutionalization stabilizes organic innovation against exposure to mechanistic routine. Routine threatens innovation, for example, through process models, quality management planned with military precision, or inadequate profitability calculations. It is only after the innovation has matured that the mechanistic routine is used to start the harvest.

Good innovation quality leads to the success of the individual innovation, bad to failure. Hence it is crystal clear to set up an innovation quality management. However, researchers and engineers are vehemently opposed to a quality management planned with military precision. It does not fit into organic innovation. Therefore, innovation quality management must also be organic. However, the existing quality management is neither set up that way nor does it have the necessary know-how. An innovation quality management has almost always to be established.

Innovations require venture financing already at the beginning. The risk is high. Project calculations make no sense at the start, since the premises are not resilient. On the other hand routine avoids the use of venture capital. Its greatest risk is growth of headcount and investment. In crises or growth phases, the routine has an increased capital requirement. When we look back at several economic cycles, cautious companies are repeatedly failing to finance their innovations. For this reason, venture financing must be set up for continuous innovation success.

We advise you to switch over to innovations and to achieve constant innovation success.