Digitalizing has a positive impact on our innovation activities in IIoT

Image David Reyero

Digitalizing has a positive impact on our innovation activities, it opens up new exciting possibilities. The first question of what, how and why are we doing this, we can start by looking at the data to begin to see there are potential ways to change something existing or improve on our idea or concept. As we gain insights then we can apply that innovative thinking with a greater technology application understanding.

We then begin to make the changes within the process, be those incremental, radical or even revolutionary to change the processes operating today.

We have distinctive ways to treat data and digitalization that leads to distinct new value points for innovation.

A new cycle of innovation design

We really do have this compelling need to have a new cycle of innovation design.

A more integrated solution that takes our understanding of innovation and how to manage it, into the realms of ecosystems and platforms in its design and thinking.

To achieve this we need to recognize a significant change we must undertake in our present innovation management. We need to open up our thinking to embrace a new era of digital innovation

Does it make sense? You judge as you read.

Extract what makes sense for you, explore where there are thoughts that can be applied to your current innovation set up. Just remember a new innovative design needs to be radical, totally connected, and resource-rich.

The Rise of Platform Business Models

The rise of platform business modelsWe have seen an incredible rise in digital platforms that have become part of our everyday lives.

Whether it’s Apple, Google, eBay, Amazon, Android, Facebook, Microsoft, Alibaba, Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb, PayPal or one of the many others, they all have become some of the hottest companies that consumers value.

These companies have built out their businesses on powerful platforms that drill down on what we value and allow us to connect. They (B2C) have connected the consumer like never before. Now we see the surge of the industrial platforms (B2B), the IIoT world arriving in force.

Coping with Digital Transformation: Adopting a Rapid Innovation Process

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As we start to think about the next year, it is a time of reflection and some forward-thinking

From my standpoint, I am simply amazed at how the world seems to be spinning faster and faster. I am convinced my working days are shorter or the clock is moving faster. I never seem to finish what I had intended to complete by the end of a day or week. I get caught up in the spillover effect.

Something always gets in the way, something has to give. So we make a resolution to change something to improve on this constant catch up state we find ourselves in.

Forget Best Practice, It Is All About Next Practice

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Often you hear the request made:

“can you give us a best practice snapshot; we would like to get a sense of where we are”.

The trouble with best practice is you are looking at someone else’s practices and these are highly individual, made up of different groups of methodologies, processes, rules, theories, values, and concepts. These together have provided that specific company a level of success that others – mostly competitors – begin to notice.

As the famous line in the film When Harry met Sally as Meg Ryan was faking it, went “I’ll have what she’s having”. No, there is no such thing as best practices, you can’t simply pick up and plug and play, as one organization’s initiative is never the same set of conditions or positioning that others can simply copy.

We desire the “one-size fits all” as a comfort blanket. Many consultants love this request, as they do not need to apply the real skills of discernment, subject matter expertise, and the difficult challenge of peeling away a client’s practice to understand how they can rebuild them to become unique, into a leading practice that cannot be copied.

Here does lie a true competitive component and so many organizations seek to apply someone else’s practice so they can end up as “same” practice.

Delving into a complex world; finding research to help you learn and adapt

“The world has never been as complex, dynamic and uncertain as it is today and the pace of change will only increase.” We hear this consistently, our continual problem is trying to make sense of it.

To attempt to keep up to date we all need to invest increasing time in acquiring a better understanding, a deeper knowledge of all the interconnected parts. Even if we are “time-starved” we simply must try and keep moving along in this understanding.

As part of my job, advising others on all things swirling around innovation, I invest significant time in researching, learning, and applying what I feel is important to others to understand or at least to raise their awareness.

Are you systematically listening to the input around you?

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So where do ideas come from? The most popular one is the ‘voice of the customer’ yet this is one of the many ‘voices’ that need to be allowed to speak.

In this fuzzy front end of innovation where ideas are generated, there are many places we can ‘discover and listen’ to the voices that will provide concrete ideas and concepts. Let’s take the time to recognize these and ask you, the reader, do you have a systematic plan to capture all these voices?

The Voice of the Customer

The most talked-about place to find the ideas that are closer and relevant is the search for new ideas around the jobs needing to be done (jtbd). We get closer to these voices when we use a variety of techniques that give this voice its chance to speak.

The Challenge is for Organizations to think differently about ecosystems

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Thinking about ecosystems certainly allows us to go out of our normal scope. The ability to tackle societal problems within an ecosystem can allow you to enter new markets that would have been impossible as an individual organization, as you did not have the collaborative ability to extend beyond more traditional channels of delivery or utilize the infrastructure, building on others specialization.

We are all making greater connections within ourselves as we find and connect to our own “tribes” that all the different social platforms are providing. Crowdsourcing is another example that is offering huge potential to exploit as it can encourage much to forge, serve, and grow whole new communities from ‘simple’ beginning, building on real-time knowledge.

Opening up our thinking towards ecosystems has a powerful effect

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Our whole understanding of innovation is changing; there are numerous shifts occurring.

We are evaluating and changing our existing focus from closed (internal orientation) into ones that are having a far more open stance. We are searching for more collaborative innovation (external orientation) combining external partners into more ‘collective thinking’.

This shift is offering us extra acceleration that is needed to improve our innovation performances from concept to market delivery.

Collaborative innovation is also leading us to higher chances of achieving greater impact and success, as nearly all novel ideas lay outside the organization’s domain of understanding.

As we increasingly include the customer and their needs within our understanding, these multiple collaborations and dialogues are building this better internal understanding.

Framing the strategic innovation discussion

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Constructing an innovation conversation framework is never easy, we all come at it in different ways and those strategic conversations begin to fray at the edges and slip more into tactical the more we talk.

At this time of year for many, this is a potential chance gained (or lost) to influence the strategic plans and secure the commitment and funding towards your innovation activities for the coming year and beyond.

If you just diving into innovations, this sort of strategic conversation can change the goalposts, alter the perspective, and can give the innovation a more focused framing to build propositions around.

The framing of an innovation conversation framework