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Introducing new tech to your company: 3 strategies Large corporations have long recognized the value of innovation. However, how does a research and development project become a technology solution that teams on the ground actually use?
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study was conducted to investigate this question, which analyzed several data sources from a large, multinational oil company. The researchers reviewed 7,000 drilling projects over a decade, examined the career histories of over 30,000 engineers dating back to 1979, and conducted a series of interviews with current engineers, managers, and executives. They discovered that the company had
consistently demonstrated an interest in innovation, spending billions of dollars on R&D each year and generating nearly 10,000 patents to date. Furthermore, they discovered that when the company adopted advanced technologies developed through its R&D efforts, drilling costs fell by 15%, resulting in an average savings of $90 million per year per subsidiary. With low oil prices, those savings were significant.
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Despite this significant investment in innovation and unmistakable evidence that innovation pays off financially, the researchers discovered that the company sometimes struggled to gain internal traction for new technologies developed by its R&D teams. Their research identified several common roadblocks and three strategies that are especially effective at encouraging new tools and systems adoption. BEGIN WITH THE USERS
Large corporations often take a top-down approach, developing new technologies based upon high-level strategic and financial concerns before passing them on to subsidiaries and teams. This can work, but the researchers discovered that the frontline engineers tasked with implementation were very hesitant to follow the instructions of some distant R&D researchers on how to do their jobs. And it's easy to understand why. These projects already have a lot of
