Technology-enabled business innovation

Everybody is talking about innovation in IT and different ways to generate new technology-driven business ideas.

However, CIOs and CTOs often tell us that their problem lies not with the generation of ideas but with their prioritization and the process of realizing any business benefits. Other executives would like to facilitate innovation in specific business areas, but don't have enough time or the human resources to innovate in an effective way.

We know that there is no silver bullet to manage and facilitate innovation within a company, but we are convinced that a very simple rule paves the road to success: "Stop talking about innovation and start doing it."

For example: perhaps a large corporation is trying to implement an innovative management process with a dedicated team, but internal fights between staff and engineering departments threaten to create deadlock situations. After top management applies the above rule, the situation can be defused.

In order to be prepared and capable of facilitating such undertakings, we are currently monitoring the following areas with potential for business innovation through IT:

• New online functionality:
  Providing users with new Internet-based services that have not been available on the Internet thus far.
• Mobile business services:
  Adapting existing functionality and enhancing it with specific mobile services for mobile users.
• Social media and information sharing:
  Distributing and sharing information over a wider range of communication channels.
• Collaboration with clients through social media:
  Letting clients share their thoughts and communicate directly with them through social media.
• Peer-to-peer services:
  Building new peer-to-peer business platforms. Making use of crowdsourcing and social networking.

We used an open innovation approach to create hundreds of ideas as a showcase in the field of mobile business services. These ideas were then prioritized in several workshops with business and IT representatives. Eventually, the top 10 ideas were selected and subjected to a feasibility analysis.

In this specific case, the chosen approach delivered good results. The concrete innovation efforts increased enthusiasm among stakeholders for the undertaking and improved their participation.

Companies should try to distinguish their client services through innovative information technology. Those that are unwilling to embrace the challenges and ideas of social media and internet collaboration will, in all probability, lose business to others that do. The same is true for companies that do not understand the demands of digital native customers.

Acrea's Innovation Maturity Assessment marks a good starting point for successful innovation. With this assessment, we will determine your innovation process capabilities, identify gaps and develop strategic improvement measures.