Organizations make great efforts to maintain viability and timeliness in a highly competitive environment. Nevertheless, in the process of adding value to innovation, we face many challenges. This article is from Gartner research analyst Steven Smith.
If you want to get the most value from innovation, you need to look outside your organization's industry and get ideas from far away. Here are three innovation tactics that other industries can bring.
1. Finding innovative business models in other industries
Cross-industry innovation plays an important role in an organization in that it provides opportunities and technical ideas that are generally not covered by the eye.
While it is useful to look for examples of innovation from a distance, it can also help leaders find and prepare for disruptions that have occurred within other industries and that are likely to disrupt the industry of their current organization. This long tail of innovation and technology transfer can occur in any combination of private to the public sector, from one industry to another, from B2C to B2B, and any other combination.
For example, the number of people with food allergies is estimated at 520 million worldwide. Nima has developed a number of products that give people with gluten and peanut allergies a better way to know what ingredients are in their food. Nima's sensors and disposable cartridges use a small sample of food to tell you if you have a specific allergen in three minutes. Sensors connected to the app provide individual test results, and these results can be compiled for individual restaurants. In this way, restaurants that demonstrate their ability to produce products that are safe from food allergies gain a competitive advantage. This business model can also be applied to other industries.
2. Explore the value proposition and innovation partnership
The digital business has created an ecosystem that spans multiple industries, providing a new source of income that has never been before. Through this ecosystem, organizations can combine various value propositions that create new value for customers. With this in mind, organizations need to find the right ecosystem to participate in, and the right partners to innovate with, to successfully seize new growth opportunities. The first step to achieving this is to accept the fact that you can't do it alone, you have to trust and rely on your partner's expertise.
As mentioned earlier, digital platforms provide rich opportunities for cross-industry innovation. For example, Quantum Group's BlueBox Care platform aggregates and analyzes data coming from wearable devices. The platform can connect any device to an individual's electronic medical record, empowering medical staff to treat patients. This type of technology platform provides users with professional services and collects useful (monetizable) data. In the long run, partners can connect health and other apps and businesses to this platform to create value for consumers.
3. Consider how to innovate against intuition
Create new value propositions by applying what you learn in one industry to another. Or adopt new capabilities and processes that arise from the evolution of digital business and ecosystems across multiple industries. Thinking across industries uncovers new opportunities and possibilities by assisting organizations in their innovation efforts.
Poland's Idea Bank, for example, has found a way to add new high-value innovations to value propositions. Idea Bank has created a workspace on commuter trains, including desks, conference rooms, Internet access, and supplies. Anyone on the train can use this space, but Ideabank customers have priority. In addition to this service, Idea Bank staff deployed on trains assist customers, especially small businesses, with banking. Since 2015, 30,000 people have used Idea Bank's facilities.
Recommendation
Inter-industry innovation has been around for decades, but now how to use it has become very important. In a situation where the pressure to secure new sources of revenue or differentiate existing business models, products, and services is increasing due to the downturn caused by Covid-19, the corporate leader leading the digital business transformation must do the following:
- Establish an innovation department. It is in charge of creating and utilizing technologies that realize new customer value in markets with insufficient service or with new products and channels.
- Consider partnerships for innovation. In some cases, you can simply follow the corporate precedents of other industries, or you can take the lead in innovation that blurs the boundaries between industries with a community of partners.
- Develop a process to continuously conduct cross-company research and analysis. Appoint one leader or small team to seek digital transformation outside of the organization's vision and support innovation partners with an advanced digital environment.
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