CEOs have taken COVID-19 as an opportunity to question the impact of their innovation agenda. 

In contemporary times like today, innovation plays a pivotal role in bringing revolutionary transformation in the entrepreneurial space. An amalgam of creative instincts and thrive to succeed can take your empire to Cloud nine. The prominent entrepreneurs with prowess in their specific fields are progressing with dynamic vigor. Innovation has long been a priority for many CEOs. Now, the pandemic has added new urgency to the quest: COVID-19 has driven a jump of 10 percentage points (to 75%) in the share of companies reporting innovation as a top-three priority—the largest year-over-year increase.

CEOs have taken COVID-19 as an opportunity to question the impact of their innovation agenda and in some cases to rethink it from the ground up. Many leaders have seen their own teams or their competitors accomplish innovation feats in just weeks that previously took months, and they are looking for ways to sustainably adopt new ways of working. A general shift is underway from traditional incremental innovation toward non-incremental or even self-disrupting moves, which involve building new and often digital capabilities.

Business model innovation can take many forms. Leading firms are making both gradual and more abrupt moves inside and outside their core business, depending on the level of disruption in their industry and the availability of adjacent growth opportunities. Most companies are at least gradually or partially altering their core business models. Digital opportunities and the sustainability imperative are two key forces driving this change.

The most successful CEOs embed an insight-based innovation in their company's culture, in its ways of working, in its organizational design, and in its leadership model. By doing so, they push innovation to frontline teams across their business and empower those teams to identify and remove sources of friction for customers. They make everyday innovation a source of competitive advantage. 

The year 2020 put to rest any remaining doubts about the value of digital processes and value propositions. Digital transformation of the core business is now a top priority for 75% of CEOs, and 65% of firms are doubling down on their plans for transformation with renewed urgency. One big benefit of digital is its ability to turbocharge innovation and create competitive advantage through new products, services, and business models.

The six success factors are close integration of digital strategy with the business strategy, commitment from the CEO through middle management, a talent core of digital superstars, business-led and flexible technology and data platforms, agile governance, and effective monitoring of progress toward defined outcomes. Bringing together all six factors is essential to becoming an innovative organization in the digital age.