This past month, we focused on how emerging technologies influence enterprise innovation. From driving initiatives through mobile technology, to using open innovation for the greater good and understanding how to execute corporate challenges, we covered a lot of ground that speaks to the effectiveness of new platforms and approaches. Below are some of our favorite April posts.
Enterprise Innovation and Emerging Technologies: Defining Needs
“Collaboration — and the technology that facilitates it across disparate regions — plays a critical role in how the enterprise approaches innovation. As workforces grow and expand across myriad time zones and cultures, finding more effective ways of bringing teams together is as imperative to project completion as it is to saving revenue. Tools like enterprise social networks and mobile conferencing are worthy investments, especially for organizations with high-speed growth trajectories.”
The Corporate, Crowdsourcing CEO: A New Age of Leadership
“In working with our largest clients’ Corporate Innovation Programs, it has become apparent that Global Enterprise Campaigns are of utmost interest.
Campaigning for innovative ideas and solutions across large, diverse organizations is a great way to break down the silos and bring together disparate locations. While it seems to be a hot topic, it brings to mind my experiences at the 2013 Dreamforce conference. I had the pleasure of seeing Marissa Mayer speak about the importance of breaking down silos and involving the entire organization in the strategy. This is what I term the New Age of Leadership.”
Building a Culture of Innovation: The 12 Pillars
“Are you familiar with the 12 Pillars of Innovation? Brian Solis, who’s worked with hundreds of startups and is the author of What’s the Future of Business, compiled a list of reoccurring traits that are all found in the world’s most successful and innovative companies. These include Google, Nike, Tesla, Virgin, and more. The 12 pillars represent cultural capstones that Solis has observed in these business monoliths, and has deemed effective tools for creating a culture of innovation in the workplace.”
Driving Innovation Initiatives Through Mobile Technology
“There is mounting competitive pressure to deploy an array of new mobile technologies at scale, while simultaneously minimizing risk. In today’s enterprises, executives are acutely focused on accelerating the pace of innovation deployment to deliver best-in-class products and services that provide a competitive advantage.
Yet some are caught off guard by unexpected mobility issues, and lose sight of essential yet basic elements involved in daily operations management and innovation deployment at scale through mobile devices.”
Open Innovation: Inspiring Collaboration in the UN
“Early last year, our partners at UNHCR told me about their new venture to employ the SpigitEngage online platform. Invited to carry out a review of the pilot-run for the platform, I was excited to learn more about how they were trying to use an innovation tool to facilitate innovation — not only amongst employees, but also partner organisations, refugees, and people of concern, with whom they work closely around the world. I was curious to see how UNHCR were engaging with a private company (Mindjet), how participants took to the platform, and what could be learnt more widely for humanitarian work.”
Managing Disruptive Innovation in the Enterprise
“Enterprise business strategies are typically based on the results of all segments of the company working together. Employees consider their role and its proper execution to be integral to the overarching success of the business, rather than just the operating unit they belong to. Similarly, underperformance in one area of the organization tends to adversely affect several others. Enterprises are established entities with clear paths of growth, or at least on the way to cornering their markets. Finally, true enterprise companies share common tactics for a variety of activities, like project planning, metrics for measuring data, and general rules of execution across the board.
But because the enterprise approach values structure and repeatability, disruptions in the market are more dangerous for them than they are for smaller-scale operations, making managing breakthroughs even more challenging than usual.”
On the Road to Innovation Maturity: The Mindjet Model
“One of the more common things I hear from our clients is that they want improved results in their innovation programmes. Yet, they don’t change the way their programme operates. Guess what — it’s not going to get better by hope alone! Often, changes aren’t made for one of two reasons: either the impact of a change isn’t known, or it’s unclear what aspects of the programme need to be changed in order to make a real difference. It is very risky to make changes without understanding the impact they may have.
How can you identify what needs to change, how to change it and be confident of the result? If you are not confident, it’s very unlikely that you will be able to convince your stakeholders to agree to the changes.”
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