Management of Extreme Situations

8Organizing Innovative Design or How to Remain an Explorer: The Case of Creaholic

8.1. Introduction

We find ourselves here in “extreme innovation”. The typologies of innovation today articulate “disruption” and have highlighted in the literature for decades radicality, discontinuity, disruption, etc. This chapter will deal with the manufacture of disruptive innovations. More precisely, it will focus on a particular form of organization that allows it to maintain itself sustainably in “extreme innovation”.

The organization is not at odds with innovation as it has designed a device adapted to the particularities of the innovative design processes. How does innovative design activity work? How is it organized? This chapter focuses on the particular case of professional designers, companies that have specialized their activity in the manufacture of repeated disruptive innovation for customers. These B2B companies, not very visible to the general public, explore and innovate for others. Seen from the customers’ point of view, this type of company is a service provider that offers innovative concepts, but also and above all, innovative deliverables that can integrate complex technologies. Behind the false image of Épinal as cool, young and relaxed innovators, these companies – which we will call innovative design enterprises (IDEs) – are true professional inventors who rigorously combine creativity, knowledge, agility, speed and efficiency in various fields of innovation. Today, ...