ACTION

Definition
An action gap can be defined as failure by a company to take the appropiate steps in order to fructify its innovation efforts. A company facing an action gap will be unable of making successful and strategic innovative moves, wherefore losing its opportunity to gain competitive advantage and solidify its hold on the market.

Characteristics :      


 * An inefficient innovation process that is neither repeatable nor reliable
 * Innovation attempts lose the momentum required to go through all the development stages
 * A lack of innovative initiative throughout the company's structure and culture

Diagnostic
 To determine whether or not a company is facing an action gap, a series of questions can be asked:

Is innovation on your corporate agenda? Have you assigned resources to systematically explore innovation opportunities?

How effective has the innovation team been? Do the initiatives deliver results to the most pressing challenges your organization is facing?

Case examples
J.C. Penney (Ron Johnson Case) 

Due to his success at Apple and Target, Johnson was hired by J. C. Penney in November 2011, when Johnson announced his transformation vision in late January 2012, J. C. Penney’s stock rose 24 percent to $43.

He put all the resources of the company in an ambitious strategy for reinvent the J.C. Penney stores. Ron removed low prices and coupons from the store with the intention of attracting a new consumer market whose purpose was to buy quality clothes at decent prices all year. He designed an integrated campaign to communicate these changes to their consumers, all staff was trained to communicate this proposal and all their communication channels was used to communicate the campaign.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Johnson's execution, however, was described "one of the most aggressively unsuccessful tenures in retail history". Nevertheless, Johnson defended his strategy saying that "testing would have been impossible because the company needed quick results and that if he hadn’t taken a strong stance against discounting, he would not have been able to get new, stylish brands on board.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;text-align:center;"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:arial,sans-serif;line-height:17px;">CNN's Christine Romans examines how missteps by former JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson cost him his job 

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;text-align:center;">

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%; font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The Ritz-Carlton Case 

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">With the goal to position itself as a world-class hotel and service excellence at the world. The Ritz-Carlton hotel made a strategic plan to redesign their service experience. The strategic quality management plan begins with the president and the other 13 senior executives who make up the corporate steering committee and the senior quality-management team.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">They developed a guide that includes:

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">1. Product- and service-quality measures

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">2. Guest satisfaction

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">3. Market growth and development

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">4. Organizational indicators, profits, and competitive status

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-add-space:auto; text-align:justify;tab-stops:0cm"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">This case demonstrates how using all available resources an organization can design a plan of action for position their brand and developing a competitive advantage difficult to copy.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:0cm;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:0cm;text-align:center;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">''<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:arial,sans-serif;line-height:17px;">Forbes Contributor Carmine Gallo explains what the Ritz-Carlton and Apple stores have in common. ''

Solution: Escaping the gap
<p class="MsoNormal">To escape falling into an action gap, the entirety of the innovation process must be adequately designed.

<p class="MsoNormal">The following steps form the basis of creating an effective one, and prevent being afflicted by this gap:

Give your company a clear vision
To foster innovation, goals should be codified and quantified. To learn more about setting goals check the relevant page. It’s important for managers to keep in mind that defining a goal is just as important as sharing it. Managers must be sure the goals are shared, common, and aligned with the different personal aims throughout the company. See  Growth goals

Set up a mechanism to source new ideas
In order to have a shot at ventures at or beyond the current fringes of its industry, a company must source new ideas both internally and externally. See Ideas

Measure the success of your innovation projects
Once a company has identified what it considers 'success', the factors must be quantified in order to properly manage your projects. Furthermore companies must be failure-tolerant and provide soft incentives to stimulate innovation attemps.