Today, for businesses, product improvements are not the only differentiating factor. With rapid technology growth and development of emerging technologies, businesses are driven to either innovate or perish. The development of new technologies from AR to AI, has forced businesses to develop and implement use cases leveraging these technologies and the winning businesses are embracing the ideology of ‘fail fast, succeed early’.
Here is a look at different strategies businesses can use to accommodate emerging technologies and make way for innovation.
1. In-house innovation teams: Many businesses, especially technology and retail companies are investing heavily on in-house innovation teams. Heavily investing to attract and retain top tech talent and giving them the access and freedom to use emerging technology is one of the ways to promote innovation culture in an organization. However, this strategy is usually viable only for companies with deep pockets and a long-term vision to be the innovators in their industry.
2. Startup Collaboration: Businesses can now collaborate with various startups working in the emerging technology space. This allows businesses to leverage specialized talent and technologies at a fraction of their costs. Proof of concepts, mutual agreements and resource sharing will develop a symbiotic relationship which helps the businesses to innovate while providing the startups with real world scenarios to experiment on. Using this strategy, proof of concepts can be built and tested for viability faster helping in an expedited time to market.
3. Innovation Ecosystem: Several industry bodies and organizations have been successful in building innovation ecosystems. These ecosystems bring together startups, technology companies, venture capitalists, businesses, technologists and researchers to build a valuable innovation network. Being a part of this ecosystem helps businesses to keep abreast of the changing innovation landscape. Mutual exchange of ideas, resources and use cases helps build and nurture a healthy mutually beneficial ecosystem. Regular knowledge sessions, conferences and forums will help in both ideation and demonstration of existing and upcoming technological capabilities.
4. Agile mindset: Innovation can only strive among people with an agile mindset. Innovation needs an environment of courage and honesty to thrive. An agile mindset encourages experimentation, learning, improving and iteration. It is all the more important for businesses to cultivate agility to enable their resources to make mistakes and learn from them. Agility also fosters small increments on products and services deeply rooted in testing, viability checks and iterations; this allows businesses to create value adding services and products rather than building something and then finding the target market.
5. Customer centricity: Many companies board the innovation bus for the ‘cool’ factor. This fear of missing out inadvertently pushes the focus off the actual customers and makes way for innovation gimmicks. It is very important for businesses to have a strong ‘why’ before embarking on innovation projects. Before embarking on an innovation project, businesses should weigh in on the customer experience, affordability and adoption rate of the expected outcome. For example, when a mid-size firm, targeting old middle-income customers, go on a quest to create VR experiences for shopping they end up missing the mark. A strong understanding of customer segment, needs and preferences is very essential for any businesses before they embark on product and service innovation.
To effectively embrace emerging technology-led innovation, businesses must invest in research and development, adopt agile methodologies, and focus on customer-centric solutions. An innovation mindset will not only enable businesses to stay competitive but also to thrive in the digital age. For a cost-efficient emerging technology implementation, it is important for businesses to lead with customer centricity by being part of an established innovation ecosystem. Innovation and emerging technologies being the buzz words of the hour, it is essential for organizations to create customer led solutions rather than be lost in the hype cycle.
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