Want to Drive Innovation? Talk to Your Customers

The customer is always right. The timeless aphorism holds truer now than it ever did before, as the customer truly drives the ever-changing trends and shapes the industry, with companies battling each other to stay relevant in the hearts and minds of their devoted audience.

Why Innovation is the Key to Improving Our Healthcare System

In the United States, American citizens receive treatments for diagnoses that at one time meant certain death, and they enjoy the longest lifespans in recorded history. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that its National Prevention Strategy centers on preventative medicine, an outcome that is greatly promoted by current legislation and technological advancement.

How Can Personalization Improve Your Business Impact?

If there’s one mistake that marketers keep repeating, it is treating their customer base as a demographic instead of as a group of individuals. With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that personalizing your message increases your engagement rate while personalizing your brand as a whole tends to give your customer loyalty a boost.

Is Innovation Data About More Than Ideas?

Anyone who is managing their innovation program with innovation software is generally amassing a wealth of data. Many people are looking at that data on an individual idea-level, but it’s actually possible to start looking at that data and identifying new themes, trends, or topics that will inform your strategy in the coming years by grouping that information on tags, text analysis, and more. It can be a trend early-warning system if you pay attention to it.

What’s Keeping CInO’s Awake at Night: The Latest Corporate Innovation Trends From a Range Of Recent Conferences

Over the past couple of weeks, I have participated in several conferences / events, to better understand key trends in corporate innovation. Each event was excellent, but also very different in scope, audience and approach.

Security and Innovation Management

Systems security is one of the top five concerns for business executives this year. In the past two years, we’ve had some very troubling and very public data breaches of systems that we use every day. So it’s no wonder that the government (and other sectors) are prioritizing security for cloud software this year. But why are they doing it? Well, there are four key reasons that security matters for innovation management systems in particular:

7 Ways Startups can Foster Innovation through Sustainability

Here’s a spoiler: 90% of all startups fail. The 10% that make it have one thing in common - they all are bringing in innovation through sustainability. These startups are all about evolving by providing faster results with less wastage. It’s a never ending process of innovating for the present and future generations.

7 Ways to Appeal to Your Customers through IoT

To understand the impact of IoT on customer service you first need to know what it is. Briefly defined, IoT is a system of interrelated devices, digital machines, and objects that have unique identifiers. All these entities also have data transfer capabilities over networks without the need for human/human or human/computer interaction. In this article, we'll explore how you can redefine and improve customer relationships through IoT.

How Business Intelligence Software can Help you Increase Operational Efficiency

Business Intelligence software is an essential tool for analyzing your company's strengths and weaknesses. From inventory management, to accounting, to customer intelligence and beyond, there are many ways you can use BI software to inform your decision-making, increase operational efficiency, and gain a competitive edge.

How the IoT can Change your Workplace

The IoT (or "Internet Of Things") is becoming a more popular topic of conversation these days. Many have already realized this with regard to individual use (say, through fitness trackers) or "smart homes." But the IoT can also have a huge effect on the workplace - here's how.

Why Crowdsourcing is Critical to the Future of Education

Educational institutions have the reputation of being slow-moving behemoths, but this label is undeserved. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the educational sector worldwide is more innovative than it gets credit for.

Six Levers For Solving The Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 3

This is the third part of a three-part article series. We are investigating why – despite all the investments made into the early phase of innovation – innovation results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. In the first part we illustrated that companies are investing heavily into the early phase of innovation. In the second part, we provided some metrics on the corporate innovation problem and found that the corporate innovation problem actually consists of a “complexity” problem” and a “system problem”. In this article, we show six levers to change the “system problem” and think this is the way to solve the corporate innovation problem – and ultimately to increase innovation performance.

Six Levers for Solving The Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 2

This is the second part of a three-part article series. In the first part we illustrated that firms are investing heavily into the early phase of innovation. In this second part we show that despite of all these investments, innovation results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. We provide some metrics and find that there are two root causes. In the upcoming third part we will suggest that six levers can be used to address one of the root causes. We believe that moving these levers can provide a solution to the corporate innovation problem – and ultimately lead to increased innovation performance.

Six Levers for Solving the Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 1

Innovation is at the top of the Management Agenda for many companies. For excellence in innovation, companies have to master the chain of activities from discovering valuable insight into unmet customer needs to successful market adoption. However, despite large and growing investments into innovation, results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. In this 3-part article series we dig deeper into this problem and find that there are actually two root causes for it. We focus on one of the root causes – the “system problem” – and work out six levers of improvement. Acting on these levers offers a solution to the corporate innovation problem and ultimately increases innovation performance.

The Unexpected Impact of Modern Innovations

Today’s pace of life can make you feel like you are strapped to the top of a rocket. With more and more screaming for your attention, we barely have time to send that long forgotten birthday card, let alone to sit down and think about the long-term effects of our innovations. But what if your latest and greatest innovation turned out to damage the lives of millions instead of improve them as planed? What if your proudest moment was also your most heinous?