Jim Stikeleather

Executive Strategist, Innovation of Dell Services

For more than 25 years, Jim Stikeleather has designed, developed and implemented information and communications technologies that help businesses and institutions succeed. Organizations worldwide rely on Jim for guidance on digital infrastructures, evaluation of emerging technologies, and strategic guidance on their application. He participates in international technology standards bodies, has multiple book and industry-article contributions to his credit and advises a number of technology incubators. Jim’s leadership experience includes technology based services start-ups and turnarounds as well as the information technology departments within large global enterprises.

Additionally, Jim holds two patents. Jim came to Dell via Perot Systems, where he was a founder of the Technical Resource Connection (TRC), which was acquired by Perot Systems in 1996. Currently, Jim serves as Executive Strategist, Innovation for Dell Services, the approximately $8 billion IT services arm of Dell, where he leads a team of information technology and business experts who identify, evaluate and assess the future potential of new technologies, business models and processes to address evolving business, economic and social trends for the company and customers.

Blog Posts by Jim Stikeleather

Innovation is a process

Innovation can happen by chance, without a determined effort or specific methodology. But when it does, it's more like luck than strategic progress. While there is a role for serendipity in strategy – being able to take advantage of pleasant surprises -- too often, that's the only way companies approach innovation: with fingers crossed. The same organizations that diligently recruit to fill their ranks with clever and creative people often fail to put in place a process that seeks to get the best out of those people. These teams will, given the chance, create new products, new services, and new ways of getting things done. But relying on random efforts is like risking an org

Three myths about innovation

Innovation, simply defined, is the process that takes new ideas and implements them in a way that creates value. It's not the same thing as invention, which is an event that occurs at a distinct point in time, often resulting in a single product. Innovation is the extension of invention, the act of bringing things that are invented to market, repeatedly.

An innovation process creates measurable value, by increasing productivity, improving quality, generating new markets, or creating other benefits to consumers, producers, or both.