Defining innovation: IBM's Arvind Krishna

Ask a dozen executives to define innovation, and you’ll likely hear 12 different answers. Become aims to answer this question. This annual research, sponsored by Mastercard and based on the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services’ Business Innovators Index, provides actionable insights and roadmaps needed to spark innovation, informed by research and insights from business leaders across continents and industries.

This month, we hear from Arvind Krishna, the chairman and CEO of IBM, who previously led the company's cloud and cognitive software business, headed IBM Research and has been hailed as "one of the 25 geniuses who are creating the future of business” for his foundational work on blockchain.

Krishna calls innovation a "never-ending journey” that isn’t just about finding or building the next big thing. “Many people equate innovation to technology,” he says. “It’s not the same. You have to do innovation across many, many fronts – across customers, across your back-end processes, across how do you really get rid of things that are unnecessary.”

Learn more about Become and what traits the most innovative companies share here.