The bottom-up “Spaghetti Organization” for pioneering innovation at Oticon was successful growing the top line for almost two decades, but gradually became too fragmented and costly as the company increased in size. The failure of a high cost revolutionary new product launch, together with the appointment of a new president triggered a redesign of the innovation process towards technological innovation in competence domains producing modules that could be assembled into new products designed by brand specific product teams. However, the new innovation process led to frustration and confusion.
Learning Objective
Managing change in the approach to innovation. Designing an innovation process adapted to the evolution of technology and organizational size, especially the tension between bottom-up creativity and developing an integrated product portfolio that exploits changing market needs. Understanding the importance of aligning organization and culture to support change (application of the Galbraith Star Model).
Keywords
Change Management, Innovation, Process, Company, Development
Settings
World/global, Denmark
Oticon, Healthcare
1991-2014
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note, Video
IMD case studies are distributed through case clearing houses. In order to browse the collection and purchase copies please visit the links below.
Copyright Information
IMD retains all proprietary interests in its case studies and notes. Without prior written permission, IMD cases and notes may not be reproduced, used, translated, included in books or other publications, distributed in any form or by any means, stored in a database or in other retrieval systems. For additional copyright information related to case studies, please contact Case Services.
