PLATFORM | 360 Degree Innovation
With regards to innovation, an organization doesn’t want to be a one-hit-wonder, but instead the goal is to establish a continuing stream of innovations. Creating an ongoing river of innovation starts with determining how and where you want to collect ideas and innovations.
There are four main sources of Innovation: employees, customers (end users), suppliers and the public. We call this 360° innovation. While the first three sources are singular, the public sector is comprised of seven sub-sources.
Employees—Employees interact with an organization’s customers on a regular basis and as such, they should have a sixth sense as to customers’ needs. This knowledge should lead to new ideas and innovations. Effectively tapping this reservoir of understanding is key to a company’s innovation process. However, for one’s personnel to function as a partner in the pursuit of innovation, they need training on how to identify and develop innovative ideas and a system for properly collecting their ideas.
Customers—Customers are a critical source of innovation. Studies have demonstrated that most ideas for new product innovations come from customers. Additionally, research has shown that well managed companies are not only close to their customers, they seek out and engage their most demanding customers regarding their respective needs. This leads to the generation of new innovations.
Suppliers—A company’s supply chain and vendors can be mined for innovative ideas related to an organization’s operations and customer needs. This can include joint development initiatives where an organization and the supplier explore new technologies and methodologies that can lead to more innovative ways to operate. Forward thinking organizations are looking to form working partnerships with key suppliers so they can work seamlessly on being more innovative. For innovation purposes, to effectively link key suppliers to an organization, a system should be developed to collect and route various ideas to the correct person or area within a company.
Public—The last source of innovation, the public, is comprised of a number of innovation sub-sources, including: the public in general, competitors, independent entrepreneurs, innovation specialists, inventors, scientists and universities.
The public sector is key to developing a continuous supply of good new ideas, and it requires forging quality links with others outside one’s company via a 360° approach to innovation. By building external information networks as well as internal cross-unit networks to generate ideas, fertile growth areas can be identified or outside solutions can be harnessed for problem areas within a company.
What we do – By utilizing our innovation expertise and unique innovation management software we show companies how to develop an inexhaustible supply of ideas and innovations.
