Author: Elliott Wilkins

Looking to inject ideation into your company’s innovation process, but not sure where to start? This is the blog you’ve been searching for…

As French author Victor Hugo famously wrote, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” These words ring especially true in the business world, where a single idea can mean the difference between success and failure.

However the process of utilizing ideas – often referred to as ideation – poses a variety of different challenges. While some companies struggle to generate ideas at all, others generate so many that they struggle to select the right ones to implement. Developing your ideas to the point that they become realistic for implementation is another issue altogether.

The good news, is that there are a variety of specialized tools and techniques that can help you overcome these specific challenges. Choosing the right one for your company can be difficult, but the details of this post should make that decision much more easy…

Why Innovation Should Never be Pre-Packaged

We should mention from the outset that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to innovation. Each of the methods that we cover can be leveraged on their own to great effect, regardless of how sophisticated your innovation set up is. Many companies fall victim to the myth that innovation is all about large-scale projects – requiring a substantial amount of time, resources, and risk taking. Therefore, because they find the prospect so daunting, they fail to innovate at all – which can, in fact, be far riskier. As we’ll see, no matter how much or how little you want to invest in innovation, there are always practical solutions that are readily available.

It should be noted that regardless of what strategies or tools you leverage to foster innovation at your business, they should target as many employees as possible. The collective intelligence of your employees is a treasure trove of growth-driving potential.

5 Popular Corporate Innovation Tools and Tactics

Level 1: Emails and Basic Office Tools

So you’ve decided that you want to start gathering ideas from your employees to help you fight back against your competitors – great, but where to start? Fortunately, you could simply send them an email asking for ideas or insights. When the ideas start coming through, you can then place them in a spreadsheet and categorize them by whatever criteria you see fit. This is the first phase towards unlocking the innovation potential of your employees. It can also be set up in a matter of minutes.

However, the limitations of this rudimentary approach will soon become very clear. If you have more than a 100 or so employees, the amount of ideas you receive will quickly become unmanageable.

When it comes to initiating a structure in which these ideas can be developed, tracked, and brought to life, basic office tools are wholly inadequate. What’s more, these tools won’t enable you to gather key metrics needed to assess the ROI an innovation initiative has gained.

Level 2: Social Collaboration Tools

If you want to take your corporate innovation efforts a step beyond the basic necessities, enterprise social tools can be a great place to start. Popular platforms like Jive, Yammer, and Workplace from Facebook can help you create dynamic environments where collaboration can take place.

Here are a few of the benefits these social collaboration tools offer:

• Streamlined Brainstorming: Enterprise social platforms make it easy to create dedicated groups where authorized users can take part in brainstorming sessions.
• Employee Approval Polls: Some networking tools enable admins to set up opinion polls. These can be used to gain an overview of which proposed innovation initiatives will gain the most employee support – eliminating an element of uncertainty and risk.
• Ways to Collect Groundbreaking ‘Random’ Ideas: Often times, the most groundbreaking ideas can emerge spontaneously from places you’d least expect. Enterprise social tools can provide a space where employees can submit feedback whenever they like, on whatever topic they like.

Although enterprise social networking tools are useful for soliciting general suggestions and feedback, they don’t offer a way to transform ‘raw’ ideas into new projects, products, and services.

A wide range of collaboration platforms can be used to facilitate ideation and communication for innovation projects.

What’s more, while networking tools are handy for promoting internal collaboration, they aren’t at all suited for open innovation projects – where ideas are crowdsourced from customers, partners, and other external stakeholders.

Level 3: Hackathons and Other Competitive Innovation Tactics

The most effective innovation activities often have a competitive aspect to them. Such activities can include hackathons – where participants work in teams to solve challenges in sprint sessions  –  or ‘Shark Tank’ style idea pitching tournaments. Incentivizing employees with prizes or the chance to see their vision realized is a great way to stimulate ideation. Innovation competitions can also foster comradery and bring out the intrapreneurial spirit of your employees. When Bill Gates was asked what advice he’d give to entrepreneurs looking to attain his level of success, he said, “Surround yourself with people who challenge you, teach you, and push you to be your best…” Competitions, if managed correctly, will create conditions where employees can push themselves, synthesize creative solutions, and become more productive contributors within your company’s innovation culture.

The time-sensitive nature of hackathons  – and other competitive innovation events – can be both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, concentrating innovation efforts to a single period of time within the year is a great way to remove the barriers that would otherwise impede output (scheduling clashes, problems imposed by distance, low engagement levels, etc).

Also, when working under time constraints, internal and external stakeholders will be forced to think creatively under pressure and contribute more ideas than they otherwise would in innovation initiatives that span weeks or months.

On the other hand, restricting innovation efforts to one time period – rather than splitting it up throughout the year – runs the risk that ideas will be limited in scope or misaligned with overarching company goals as they change.

it’s worth remembering that a truly fertile innovation ecosystem is one that can go beyond the digital sphere and bring great thinkers together in the real world. As vital as it is to connect internal and external stakeholders via an online hub, running activities in a shared physical space can help promote engagement, uncover game-changing ideas, and add a human touch to your innovation endeavours.

It’s also important to point out that, regardless of how sophisticated you make your ongoing innovation processes, hackathons and other competitive initiatives should remain part of your strategy. Combining long and short term approaches to innovation can help you gain the best possible returns.

Level 4: The DIY Ideation System

The hallmark of a company at an advanced stage of innovation sophistication is one that is able to manage multiple company-wide ideation efforts from a single location. To do this, many companies opt for the DIY approach. Typically, this involves adapting a company portal to include basic collaboration and ideation functionality. Such adaptions can sometimes be achieved through add-ons and plugins -like WordPress and other content management systems. However, developers are generally needed to make the necessary adjustments.

The obvious appeal of the DIY approach is that it involves building upon what users are already familiar with. Despite this, stretching the capabilities of your existing online infrastructure to better accommodate innovation may present major difficulties, and can often prove to be more costly in the long run.

Here are just a few of the pitfalls you should be aware of:

• Excessive Time and Resource Requirements: Remember, your developers will likely need to spend a significant amount of time working on the coding of your system, ironing out bugs, and diverting resources that could more productively be used elsewhere.
• Lack of Dedicated Support: Your DIY ideation system will need ongoing maintenance and user support to be able to facilitate initiatives efficiently. Without the dedicated customer support that third-party innovation software vendors provide, you’ll need to rely on your own staff to keep your system up and running.
• Greater Risk: Even if you manage to get your DIY platform off the ground, there is a high chance that it will eventually be misaligned with your company’s innovation goals as they grow in scale and complexity. Also, if your platform lacks the sophisticated engagement capabilities afforded by innovation management software vendors – gamified features, personalized notifications, etc. – there is a higher chance that employees will eventually stop using it.

A DIY ideation system can serve as a basic way to unify company innovation efforts – a step beyond launching disconnected projects designed for short-term goals. However, it’s impossible for a DIY system to achieve the level of sophistication that dedicated innovation management vendors have built up over the last 10 years.

Level 5: Bringing Everything Together – Using Corporate Innovation Tools Within a Dedicated Platform

Simply put, to ensure your company is able to innovate in a way that keeps ROI high and risk low, there is no substitute for a dedicated online platform. Comparing basic ‘Level 1’ office tools to such a platform is akin to comparing a wagon wheel to a jet engine. The latter will get you to where you need to go much quicker!

The Qmarkets idea management platform makes it possible to launch a huge array of innovation initiatives, while making sure that each aligns with overarching company goals. Using the Qmarkets platform, you can:

✓ Define unique automated idea development workflows based on industry-proven best practices and tailored to your unique requirements

✓ Launch targeted innovation campaigns where users can submit their ideas, as well as comment and vote on ideas submitted by their colleagues

✓ Facilitate hackathons, idea tournaments, and other time-sensitive innovation competitions – the platform offers an array of gamified methods for incentivising user participation

✓ Launch open innovation initiatives to gain invaluable insights from customers, partners, and other external stakeholders

✓ Use a wide assortment of reporting tools to track KPIs and assess the ROI of your ongoing innovation efforts

Qmarkets’ collective intelligence suite is tailored to fit seamlessly into your strategic innovation management ecosystem.

To help ensure your projects yield the best possible results, Qmarkets complements its products with a commitment to customer success. A dedicated team is available to offer support, guidance, and expertise on your innovation management journey.

Never underestimate the power of small beginnings. Whether you are taking your first tentative steps towards gathering ideas via email, planning a corporate hackathon, or building a DIY ideation system, each of these activities will reveal new and exciting ways to develop future initiatives. Like evolution, innovation is a perpetual process. With tenacity, the right tactics, and an inclusive approach, you can help your organization climb to the top of the food chain and become the apex innovator.

To discover how Qmarkets can help you leverage powerful corporate innovation tools and tactics at your enterprise, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today!

“Innovate or stagnate.” It’s a stark choice that businesses across all sectors must confront daily. Although many decision makers at large companies recognize the importance of innovation, most fail to implement it in a strategic, consistent, and effective way. A recent study by McKinsey & Company found that 84% of executives agreed innovation was important for their growth strategy, but only 6% said they were satisfied with innovation performance. In this article, we’ll explore why innovation management is important for any company looking to remain competitive on the corporate landscape. 

In a nutshell, innovation management can be defined as the methodical process of introducing ‘something new’ to an organization – be it a product, service, model, etc. It’s the practice of implementing strategies to introduce this change in a way that best benefits an organization.

Now we’ve got a clearer picture of what innovation management is, let’s explore why the practice is important for driving ongoing business success.

1. It Amplifies Employee Engagement

Michael Jordan once said, “talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” These words of wisdom could just as easily apply to the benefits of creating an engaging innovation culture. You may have talented employees with great ideas. However, they will have little impact on your company unless they are encouraged to combine their intelligence with other employees, and work as a team to reach overarching innovation goals.

By implementing innovation management, you can create a company-spanning ecosystem where employees feel engaged and incentivised to contribute their ideas. Here are just a few methods you can use to sustain this ecosystem.

In this interview, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos discusses how his company has formulated a thriving innovation culture that helps ensure that employee talents are brought to the surface.  

• Add Gamification Elements: This could entail offering prizes to employees who contribute suggestions that are adopted, or running innovation competitions that involve departments, select teams, or even external startups. Participants are more likely to contribute productively in a project that is structured like a game, rather than one that feels like another standard procedure.
• Develop a Communication Strategy: Create emails, newsletters, posters, and other communication materials to build the hype around innovation projects. This will let employees know that their input will be valued.
• Keep the Conversation Going: Establish an online space where employees can collaborate around innovation projects, as well as upvote and comment on new ideas.

In addition to offering fertile ground in which new ideas can, an innovation ecosystem can also reveal areas where internal improvements can take place.

2. It Helps You Identify and Implement the Best Ideas

Innovation management makes it possible to systematize the process of capturing, refining, and implementing groundbreaking ideas. To drive innovation, you’ll need to have a process in place to solicit ideas from target audiences (employees, customers, partners, etc.) and then sort the ‘gold’ from the ‘gravel’. Innovation management involves developing these processes in a repeatable, scalable way.

French energy giant Total S.A is a great example of a company that deployed an open innovation management strategy to capture profit-driving ideas. In 2015, Total S.A utilized the Qmarkets platform on their website to create their ‘Tilt’ program – a space where customers could contribute ideas in three categories (each representing a side of the company’s offerings) – “My Home”, “My Car”, and “My Fuel Station”. All ideas could be voted on by other users, and the submissions that received the most votes were evaluated for implementation. Users who submitted ideas selected for implementation were awarded with physical gifts (iPads, fuel cards, etc.) encouraging greater participation. As a result of the initiative, Total S.A was able to uncover invaluable insights for improving their offerings, while also letting their clientele know that they cared about their needs – humanizing their brand in the process.

Here are just some of the ways you can utilize innovation management to identify, develop, and implement valuable ideas.

• Harness Employee Expertise: Encourage employee innovation with brainstorming sessions and co-creation tasks. It may seem old fashioned, but having an online ‘suggestion box’ for random ideas could also help you find diamonds in the rough.
• Capture Creativity from Outside Sources : Crowdsource key insights from customers, partners, and other external stakeholders via open innovation
• Unleash the Competitive Instinct: Run hackathons to add a competitive dimension to innovation projects and incentivise internal and external stakeholders to contribute their best ideas.
• Streamline Idea Workflows: Develop the funnel your ideas must progress through to become actualized, adding key approval ‘gateways’ and assigning the decision makers who must oversee them.

By using a combination of these approaches, you can help ensure that ideation at your company yields the best possible results.

3. It Can Ensure Outstanding and Repeatable ROI

The old adage “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” holds particularly true when it comes to innovation. Although it’s vital to have the mechanisms in place to uncover great ideas, it’s just as critical to monitor how these ideas progress towards implementation and assess the impact they have on your bottom line.

Part of what makes innovation management so indispensable is that it gives companies a way to ‘incubate’ ideas – ensuring they are developed with input from multiple stakeholders so they are primed to generate optimal ROI. Incubation could involve assigning experts from relevant departments to assess the viability of an idea, enabling customers to vote on a range of new product options, or simply giving employees a means to upvote and comment on innovative suggestions.

One of the primary reasons why innovation management is important is that it allows new ideas to be actualized in a way that is methodical and supported by data. The Qmarkets platform makes it easy to manage all aspects of idea ‘incubation’ , as well as track the ROI of innovation projects.

A central component of innovation management is the gathering of key metrics – profits gained, market adoption levels, positive feedback, etc.  – that can inform adjustments that need to be made for future projects. This, in turn, can help minimize the risk and uncertainty associated with the development of new products and services, as well as reveal what innovative practices consistently generate value. Armed with this data, you can take your innovation endeavours from strength to strength.

Generate Genius with Innovation Management Software

Given the points above, it’s easy to see why innovation management is important for companies across all sectors. The next question you’re likely asking is, “how can I implement this practice at my business?”. The answer – in short – is innovation management software.

Qmarkets offers a comprehensive range of collective intelligence platforms, each designed to help you manage innovation in a way that accommodates the needs of your enterprise. With Qmarkets software, you can:

✔ Use an array of customizable features for boosting employee engagement and facilitating co-creation around innovation tasks

✔ Implement ideation workflows – informed by field-proven best practices – to gather, develop, and implement ideas for full effect

✔ Meticulously measure all aspects of your innovation projects with advanced reporting and analytical tools

✔ Launch and manage open innovation projects to gain insights from partners, customers, and other external stakeholders

Remember, innovation is the lifeblood of any successful company. It’s the power that transforms crisis into opportunity and alters the disruptive currents on the corporate landscape. Managing this tremendous force should be a constant priority.

To find out how Qmarkets can help you raise the bar for innovation management at your business, don’t hesitate to contact us today. 

To maximize the ROI of your innovation initiatives, it’s vital to gain input from as many sources as possible and ensure all departments take part in a culture of ideation. In this article, we explore the concept of Total Innovation Management (TIM) and how you can leverage it at your enterprise. 

One of the most famous fables from India is ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’. A group of blind villagers are informed that an Elephant has been captured. Having heard rumours about these strange beasts, the curious men go to inspect the Elephant. Each is invited to feel a separate part of the creature to get an idea of its shape. One man feels the trunk, concluding that the Elephant is a large snake while another, touching the ear, believes it has wings, and so on. Eventually, the men begin to suspect each other of dishonesty and a fight ensues – thus showing how limited subjective experience taken as absolute, can be a major cause of chaos.

Despite originating in ancient India, this tale epitomizes one of the major factors that impedes corporate innovation. Too often, companies think of innovation in terms of disparate temporal projects, rather than as a holistic practice that should be permanently embedded within the organization’s DNA. By implementing total innovation management (TIM) practices, enterprises can ensure all projects – from developing products to improving processes – align with overarching objectives.

So, what is total innovation management? It’s the process of developing a synergy between technology, organization, and culture to develop ongoing innovation proficiency within an enterprise. To achieve this, companies must communicate a clear innovation strategy to employees, break down departmental silos, and give employees a means to submit their ideas.

In this article, we’ll outline three main practices of TIM to better address the Elephant in the room.

1. Establish a ‘Big Picture’ Strategy

Following the rise of the internet in the 1990s, employees could contribute and collaborate around innovation projects with unparalleled ease. This, in turn, made the prospect of total innovation management a practical exercise for companies in all industries.

Today, the fundamental practice of TIM remains the same – setting a clear ‘big picture’ strategy to which corporate decision makers can direct the innovative energies of their employees. This strategy could be advancing digital transformation, adapting to a changing market, restructuring an organization to accommodate expansion, or any other large-scale objective. Once the big picture has been established, an organization can then conceptualized how various factors –technological capabilities, company culture, marketing strategies, etc. – can be harmonized effectively within it.

A great example of a company leveraging TIM for a big-picture objective is offered by Philip Morris International.  Despite being the world’s most successful cigarette company, PMI recognized the necessity of fundamentally changing its business model to create a smoke-free future. As such, PMI implemented an innovation management platform to align all departments and reshape company culture to address this radical goal.

2. Amplify Idea Generation

You can’t address the question ‘what is total idea management’ without emphasising the importance of crowdsourcing ideas. Ideas are the life blood of innovation, and TIM involves casting as wide a net as possible to ensure employees from all departments have an easy means to put suggestions forward. It’s important to remember that often the best ideas emerge from the most unlikely sources.

Aside from producing breakthrough new products and services, involving varied audiences in idea generation can help promote the kind of synergy required for TIM. For example, a proposal from the IT department for a new database could have implications for sales, HR, and other departments. By allowing members of these departments to comment on the initial idea, it can be built upon to better accommodate employee needs – thus improving efficiency. An idea management platform can be indispensable for promoting this kind of interdepartmental co-creation.

3. Nurture a Creative Culture

Maintaining employee engagement is critical for TIM. Every member of the organization should feel they have a stake in the innovation process and be excited about pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible. Founding a culture that rewards innovation, encourages risk taking, and sparks creativity, is pivotal in this respect.

To sustain a creative culture that supports intrapreneurship, consistent awareness needs to be maintained around innovation efforts. This means developing a communication strategy that keeps employees informed about their obligations, and giving them a stimulating means to contribute ideas. Leveraging the competitive spirit of employees can help support this culture. For example, in 2014 the U.S Department of Health and Human Services launched “Shark Tank” style competitions, in which employee teams pitched ideas for internal improvements.

Harnessing the Power of TIM

Now that we’ve answered the question ‘what is total innovation management’, and addressed the key practices associated with it, the next important question to ask is ‘how can TIM be implemented at my enterprise?’ Dedicated innovation management software can be pivotal in this respect. It can provide a means for companies to create a hub in which all innovation projects can be assigned, monitored, developed, and tracked to ensure ROI is achieved. What’s more, an innovation management system is ideal for sustaining the kind of culture where game-changing ideas can thrive.

For example, with Qmarkets’ innovation management software, enterprise companies can develop and monitor new ideas from inception to implementation, whilst also giving employees a simple, engaging way to take part in the company’s innovation culture. In addition to innovation management – the software also provides a centralized location in which an enterprise can manage design thinking, tech scouting, continuous improvement initiatives, and more.

The rapidly growing popularity of innovation management tools reflect their increasing importance. According to a recent global forecast, the innovation management market is projected to reach 1,519.2 million USD by 2022. As of 2017, the market was worth 421.6 million – indicating a compound annual growth rate of 29.2%.

Although total innovation management may seem like an elephantine task, and admittedly it can be a complicated methodology to comprehensively implement, an incredibly effective way to futureproof your enterprise. And don’t forget, an innovation management system will give you the best possible perspective when it comes to capturing, developing, and launching groundbreaking ideas.

To discover how Qmarkets can help improve idea generation and innovation at your enterprise, contact us today!