What does meaningful innovation really look like? Organisations like Collider and Kite are adept at bringing together big businesses with technology start-ups. Banks now have huge innovation teams. Even British Gas has Hive – the output of its own innovation lab. This big-small collaboration is already happening. But what are the expected outcomes?

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what innovation should be. Everybody, but everybody, references Uber, AirBnB and Tesla as examples of how innovation has transformed an entire industry. But these were not big companies trying to be something else. These were start-ups giving it a go, and succeeding. They didn’t partner big companies. They threatened them.

"Innovation is not necessarily doing new things, but doing old things in new ways"

Now everybody is trying to emulate them. Big companies think that if only they partnered with a small company they might come up with an industry changing concept. They’d transform, digitally or otherwise. So perhaps it’s time we stopped. Or at least got real about what innovation and transformation is really about. Particularly digital transformation which is the buzzword of the marketing industry.

Over 50% of the UK economy is driven by businesses doing business with other businesses. Most of them are unsung. Most of them don’t make rivets any longer, they create small systems or services which improve the way their customers do business. And it’s here that I think the real innovation lies. Innovation in this context is not necessarily doing new things, but doing old things in new ways.

Uber changed the way we hail cabs, but it didn't reinvent the wheel

The truth is that big companies have customers, revenue models and shareholders, so they can’t simply transform overnight into something else. Of course they need to keep a watchful eye on trends, and improve their services.

But as the newspapers will attest, digital has not wiped them out. Video has not killed the cinema. So I think that innovation now has to be just as much about improving every step of the process as it is about reinventing the process.

At the end of the day, the existing customer will thank you and you won’t have disrupted them in the process. You will have also, with any luck, created a more seamless stream of data which tells you about the customer, connected systems, platforms and departments which didn’t formerly speak to each other and probably saved considerable time and cost in the process.

I’m going to give you the analogy of skiing. But skiing on a particular type of piste. A glacier. I think most companies have a digital experience which is like this. We’re all sashaying down neatly, it’s smooth and we think everything’s fine.

This is what it (should) feel like when someone’s scrolling through your website, looking for information or a way to engage with you or, heavens, even to buy something from you.

But there’s often a yawning crevasse lying in their path. It could be the gap between the MA landing page and the actual website experience. It could be the gap between the marketing message on the corporate page and the battle to actually find the information they want and download it on the move.

It could be the gap between wanting to work for a particular company and the ability to actually find a job that fits your skills set, experience and geography.

Each of these is a hole, a crevasse into which people fall. And it’s critical. Google research shows that 57% of buyers would de-list a potential supplier if they have a bad mobile experience. I think the innovation element is actually about filling these holes, not coming up with new pistes. We need to keep our customers on piste but give them better snow conditions.