Dealing intelligently with economic uncertainty, staying at the forefront of competitiveness, generating business, taking advantage of emerging technologies, satisfying the constantly evolving demands of the market or adapting organizational processes to new operational realities, are some of the challenges to be faced. those that companies face today.
Endless challenges that require an agile, creative and experimental approach and that have led to innovation becoming a strategic priority for any company.
And the risk of not innovating can entail not only a loss of competitiveness, but also of clients, talent and opportunities to continue growing. So much so that, according to the latest report we have done together with APD, those companies with a culture of innovation well integrated into their strategy are 32% more productive, and can reach five times their annual income, compared to companies that They are not capable of innovating.
In this sense, we can affirm that, with a collaborative mentality, careful planning and an open approach to the combination between new technologies and existing technologies, companies can successfully adapt to future variations, improve their results and boost their growth and its economic impact.
The secret to achieving this is not only to innovate, but also to know how to do it. The use of appropriate methodologies that help from design to validation and scaling, as well as the involvement of all stakeholders from the beginning it is necessary to move from pilots or POCs to real projects. Furthermore, it is increasingly important to rely on an ecosystem of partners solid to achieve synergies that hardly exist with the capabilities of a single company.
Added to this, one of the main blockages to innovation today is that there is excess centralization. Many innovation decisions necessarily go through the matrix without allowing local areas to take measured risks and make intelligent investments that can then be extended to the rest of the company, even if we are talking about POCs with low economic cost and high potential impact. It is not surprising therefore that other external actors arrive and disrupt the market plans of certain companies.
Therefore, when launching a new product or service on the market, for example, it is essential to test its minimum necessary characteristics and be able to iterate with users to modify them appropriately before launch.
This allows a faster entry to the market and also more precise a priori, as it helps to collect feedback of actual use, validate assumptions, and adapt the product based on user responses. This iterative process minimizes the risk of creating a product that does not meet market needs and ultimately helps maximize return on investment.
Likewise, the measurement of innovation is also crucial, not only through the evaluation of the financial return of the projects, but also the satisfaction of the end user, the time to market and launch of new products and services, the repetition of a certain innovation project after X years in the case of dedicated projects with high added value, the number of patents created, the increase in market share or even, internally , the cost-benefit of process improvement, talent retention in the company and general satisfaction or engagement of the employees.
Technology and talent, the accelerators of innovation
Without a doubt, the future of innovation accelerates thanks to technology. And it continues to play a crucial role in the field of innovation, especially in such a hyperconnected world in which data is essential.
We must not lose sight of the hype cycle from Gartner that all technology usually follows. Just because we are starting to talk a lot about a certain technology does not mean that it is at its optimal point of development and that is why it is not advisable to lose sight of existing technologies such as IoT and the concept of IoT analytics that provides valuable data for the creation of new use cases.
This, together with capabilities that are already entering their maturity cycle such as 5G or exponential capabilities based on AI, opens up great potential for those companies that aspire to remain competitive in the future and lead their respective industries.
But to ensure that technology holds true potential for companies, it is also necessary that the human factor be valued within them. Promote a collaborative culture where employees have the ability to adapt to change and evolve, where collective intelligence serves as a driving force to convert good individual ideas into scalable innovation, and where there is a work environment of support and recognition of employees. innovative efforts. We cannot forget that the protagonists of innovation are professionals, since they are the ones who can best identify the challenges that their own companies have to address.
As we mentioned before, a solid innovation strategy must meet a series of requirements. When it comes to internal innovation, an innovative culture impregnated in each and every layer of the organization is vital, that there are tools and capabilities so that innovation arises from anywhere, and that the Innovation department is aligned with the most strategic layer of the company and interrelates with other areas internally in order to identify needs.
Regarding everything related to external innovation, the existence of areas truly focused on the research, that they are very up to date with what the new technologies that emerge around them are like, and that they ask themselves questions like: what are my competitors doing? What are the new needs of my clients? And from there, begin to explore and create that more directed and planned innovation. Likewise, it is crucial to rely on an appropriate partner ecosystem, since we will not always be able to develop a solution individually and in isolation.
But what are the technologies with the greatest business opportunities? Of course, it depends on the sector. For example, in Industry the new capabilities of Edge Computing, which allow cost savings when managing information and process intelligence without uploading to the cloud; the new high-precision collaborative or autonomous robotics to deploy new processes; the IoT with the greatest penetration to serve as a basis for the creation of Digital Twins real and the entire layer of additive manufacturing that is being disruptive both in the consumption of materials and in the design and after-sales service itself.
In energy, the entire layer of Smart Grids and the smartest use of resources. In tourism, everything related to user experience and personalization is key; for this, the new AI and Augmented Reality capabilities, as well as new types of sensors, are capable of adding value to the user experience and resource management.
Finally, in healthcare, there is great potential in the development of digital therapies, remote patient monitoring and a decentralized hospital without losing sight of quality of care.
Undoubtedly, private 5G networks represent an important basis for creating innovation projects. In Spain, for example, we have the Euskadi Technology Park, the first Technology Park in the country with a Private 5G Network. A project that, within the framework of the commitment to the area of smart industry, has the objective of creating a data ecosystem with a focus on the industrial sector.
Thus, the creation of this living lab It is allowing the promotion of strategic sectors such as collaborative and connected mobility, robotics or cybersecurity with the attraction of new projects. In fact, there are already some practical cases with a highly positive impact, such as the so-called Robotekin or the use of connected vehicles and assisted driving in a real environment, which will be implemented on the region’s roads next year in collaboration with Basque. CCAM.
A clear example of abandoning the traditional and only vision that innovation is limited to the development of new products and services, in defense of a more holistic perception of it and recognizing that it is a key actor that can help acquire or maintain a competitive advantage.
If a company aims to become a player highly innovative must strive to generate innovation from the foundations of the business, promote adequate working conditions, seek solutions or services that are relevant to the needs of the company in question, find digital partners and, no less important, take into account their impact social and environmental.
Daniel Manzano FuentesInnovation Director at Vodafone Business
