Boosting Supplier Innovations by Implementing New Promotor Roles

Successfully implemented innovations in firms often benefit from a set of corporate actors who promote such innovations. This is the essence of promotor theory. However, this theory was designed almost five decades ago, when most innovations were still generated internally in a firm's laboratory. In most cases today, suppliers external to the firm play a crucial role in implementing innovations. The following question thus arises: Do such externally generated innovations actually require the buying firm to have a set of promotors of its own? Relying on a benchmark and the World Café method, our research concludes that a new set of promotors tailored to supplier innovation is needed: the supplier vision promotor; the customer promotor; and a diplomatic promotor. Establishing a dedicated team of promotors may be a key to boost innovations coming from suppliers.