Research director for IT analyst firm Hydrasight, John Brand, believes fewer than 20 percent of organizations have formal innovation programs in place and so face more failures than successes.

Speaking at a CIO Executive Council forum in Sydney last week, Brand said innovation is difficult to manage without the right culture and "you have to foster that culture", which is best done through enterprise governance.

"The very nature of innovation is changing," he said. "It used to be isolated, but is now open as we have more complex business relationships."The driver for innovation in the future will be more "open", Brand said.

"Companies will look outside," he said. "Do we have a structured mechanism to do that? We have to semi-structure innovation."

Brand said there are a number of innovation "myths", including innovation equals improved business performance and overall business success."There are some downsides to innovation," he said, such as the extent to which it has gone into personal robots, which are yet to yield any real value.