Established companies know they must innovate to find growth in the digital era. So, in recent years, large companies have set up innovation labs, accelerators, hackathons, and open innovation programs to look beyond their core, pursue disruptive ideas, iterate, and experiment.

Yet, most of these efforts produce little in the way of results. Corporate teams are outrun by startups. Innovation labs are shut down after failing to deliver growth at a scale that matters to the business.

Why does this keep happening? And what can be done? In 20 years of researching digital strategy and advising dozens of Fortune 500 companies, I’ve repeatedly seen that the root cause of this failure is the missing link between strategy and innovation.

Corporate innovation cannot begin with blue-sky thinking and proceed with the independence of a startup. Instead, companies must learn to link every innovation effort to two pillars of strategy: a clear set of growth priorities, and an understanding of the firm’s unique advantages.

By linking innovation to strategy at every step along the way, from greenlighting to scaling up, established businesses can leverage their strengths to deliver innovation that drives bottom-line growth.

The first strategy question that must be central to any corporate innovation effort is: What are the strategic priorities that matter most to our business? In my book, The Digital Transformation Roadmap, I suggest two lenses for defining strategic priorities: problems and opportunities.

The problem lens draws from the common wisdom of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to “fall in love with the problem” you are seeking to solve, and not the solution you expect will solve it. This could be a problem to solve for the customer (e.g., difficulty in placing an order or in personalizing a product). Or it could be a problem to solve for the business (e.g., high customer attrition, difficulty forecasting demand, or inaccuracy in packing orders).

One company I’ve seen take this approach is Walmart. I’ve interviewed senior executives over several years about their strategy, innovation process, and transformation of the business. The company has decided that a key customer problem to solve is online ordering of groceries — a category that is important to Walmart’s business, and where the existing customer experience has left much to be desired.

The opportunity lens is another way to define a strategic growth priority. This could be an opportunity for the business to expand into a new market or sector (such as Amazon’s decision to explore cloud computing, which ultimately led to the launch of Amazon Web Services). Or it could be an opportunity to delight the customer with an unexpected benefit or reward.

Walmart, for example, defined an opportunity to let customers shop by texting a virtual assistant (who would help research products, propose options, and then place the order for the best product). The goal was to delight the customer and shift their habits away from Amazon Prime.

Any problem or opportunity, if sufficiently important to your business, may be defined as a strategic priority for growth. The point is to pick the problems and opportunities that matter most to your particular business and to your customers.

Define Your Unique Advantages

The second strategy question that should be central to any corporate innovation effort is: What unique advantages does our business hold over competitors? These could be physical assets, data, network effects, intellectual property, brand reputation, or other strengths that distinguish your business, add value to your products, and give you a competitive edge. Disney, for example, has a unique advantage from its iconic stories and characters, which it exploits in various business models — from film to streaming, theme parks, and merchandise.

Leveraging preexisting strengths will help you build competitive moats around new ventures and give you a “right to win” against others who bring similar innovations to the market. To truly matter, each advantage must be both distinctive (objectively superior to most peer companies) and strategic (providing a clear benefit when competing with others).

One of Walmart’s unique advantages is the proximity of its retail stores to end consumers: 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart. The company is exploring digital business models that leverage this physical footprint — from mini fulfillment centers that support its ecommerce division, to a digital advertising network linked to in-store displays.