Benchmarking your innovation activities against your industry will kill you
When it comes to innovation, many corporates still benchmark their activities, budgets, and ambitions against others in the same industry. It feels rational. Safe. "If everyone around us is investing 5% of revenue into innovation, we should too." "If others are slowing down innovation initiatives, we should be cautious as well." But this thinking is a trap — one that creates what I call the Handorgel Effect: the slow death of real innovation.
The Handorgel Effect: expanding and contracting in unison
Imagine an accordion (Handorgel in German). It stretches out. It compresses. Always back and forth, always the same rhythm. That’s exactly how entire industries behave when they benchmark innovation inside the industry. When the market is booming, everyone launches innovation labs, increases funding, and hires "moonshot" teams. When uncertainty hits, budgets are slashed, teams are dismantled, labs are shut down. Expand. Contract. Expand. Contract. The real problem? If everyone moves together, nobody moves ahead. No one builds a lasting edge. No one dares to move against the cycle.
Your biggest threat isn’t in your industry
While you’re busy adjusting your activities based on what your direct competitors are doing, someone else is busy attacking your market — someone from outside. Startups. Tech companies. Even corporates from entirely different sectors who spot opportunities you can’t see because you’re looking sideways, not forward. These players don’t participate in the Handorgel Effect. They aren’t benchmarking their innovation activity against yours — they are benchmarking against customer frustration, unmet needs, and future value pools.
Benchmark against the attackers, not the defenders
If you want to build an innovation advantage, you can’t synchronize your tempo with industry peers stuck in the same cycle. Instead, benchmark against those who want a stake in your future:
Startups building faster, cheaper, more customer-friendly alternatives
Tech giants reshaping business models
Industry crossovers looking to diversify their revenue
Look where the ambition is — not where the fear is.
Synchronize with opportunity, not caution
Industry benchmarking creates cautious innovation: "Let’s not fall behind. But let’s not stick our necks out too far either." But real innovation doesn’t happen through cautious moves. It happens through asymmetric bets — decisions made based on opportunity, not comfort. The ones attacking your market aren’t waiting for consensus. They are building for unmet demand, reshaping value chains, and moving before you even notice.
Tempo and hunger beat size and tradition
Innovation isn’t about doing what others are doing — just a little better. It’s about moving at a different tempo, driven by different intentions. The organizations that win are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets or the longest legacies. They are the ones that move faster, stay hungrier, and dare to break the cycle. Benchmarking inward industries builds sameness. Benchmarking outward builds survival.
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