Relevance refers to our ability to create strategic empathy and connect with what users truly want.
A company innovates to the extent that it deepens its users’ understanding of how to connect with the capabilities of technology to make things happen, and then manages to translate that understanding into a business model that supports this vision of innovation, allowing it to constantly evolve, reading the changes and opportunities that uncertainty brings.
To be innovative, a company must adhere to three basic principles: human desirability (people), feasibility (technology), and viability (finances) (knowing how to do business). We find relevance at the intersection of these three principles.
In addition to the user’s vision, a successful innovation process requires tight collaboration between the Business and Technology divisions. Leaders in the business areas must have solid knowledge of technology and be responsible for the company’s technological decisions, whereas leaders in technology must act as business leaders, together developing a technological architecture that allows for innovation and evolution.
The role of technology
Technology must be seen as an enabler of opportunities, an understanding of the user, and a creator of value to the extent that it is understood and used by people. With a vision from less to more, always starting in beta mode and with the ability to orchestrate the strategic visions of a company.
One of the advantages that technology brings is the certainty that it provides a favourable environment for innovation to arise. And it is that without technology, there can be no innovation.
However, it is not an easy journey. Among the barriers to innovation highlighted by huge corporations are the fact that resources are not given to potential projects and the difficulty for the entire organization to adhere to the strategy. According to this assumption, the challenge of business innovation will always be a work model geared to the governance of uncertainty, with the major difficulty involving the exponential capacities that are attracted, in terms of talent, and that make this process possible.
Some challenges that we must consider as part of the premise to innovate with technology are the following:
- Startup mindset which allows it to make a lot of mistakes but still take on challenges quickly and cheaply.
- Agile cultures and methodologies that project performance over time are being implemented.
- Attracting talent that questions the status quo and envisions business evolution.
- The formation of hybrid work teams capable of carrying out the company’s innovation theses.
- Reading market trends, understanding and connecting these trends with obvious opportunities to act and move forward.
The companies’ vision
From the companies’ point of view, technology has gained an increasingly important role in their digital transformation and innovation processes. This is what ROCA’s Marketing Digital Manager says: “Technology has become a basic tool for the digital transformation of processes, addressing sustainability in a rigorous way with sensorization of productive processes and enabling a new generation of connected products that deliver new values to our clients ”.
The AC Marca Group shares their vision for how they will use technology to innovate: “In order to solve the innovation process in any of the company’s domains, technology is required.” Either in the enhancement of industrial processes, the simplification of R&D procedures, or the pursuit of new consumer communication channels.”
However, this new environment has introduced significant obstacles for businesses, one of which we highlight from ROCA: “Resistance to change, major organizations have a lot of inertia and convincing is difficult.” At this time, the demand for technological consulting services obviously outstrips supply, resulting in project delays.” Other issues stem from the deployment of new technologies in global enterprises. As the AC Marca Group explains, their challenge was to “unify the technological instruments in the 13 countries where we have a presence, taking into account the particularities of each one.” In addition, systems must be adapted to an ever-changing environment.”
7 suggestions for companies seeking to be innovative
In the US, Spain and Latin America, we see very different scenarios, with some companies doing very well while others are still waking up with the disadvantage of living in less mature, smaller markets with a digital divide, making it difficult to find the necessary bets to innovate.
The key to innovation is to have competent professionals and suppliers, as well as top management support.
We have seven recommendations on how businesses should innovate:
1. Increase your budget significantly: Innovating, transforming, or even aspiring to reinvent yourself does not come cheap.
2. Consider how everything that happens affects the very essence of the business from the standpoint of strategy (purpose, value proposition and business model).
3. To prioritize hygienic and transformational improvements, map the entire customer journey in relation to the customer context, expectations, and needs.
4. Creating the optimal combination of internal talent that pushes the organization with partners who can provide the required speed, plasticity, and time-to-market. There are numerous suggestions. The key is to put them into action.
5. Create an environment of experimentation and trial-and-error, and create some initial MVPs that can evolve over time.
6. To provide itself with the necessary infrastructure to operate with various KPIs that allow it to propose continuous improvement over time in real time.
7. Allow 10-20% of the energy and resources for the company’s transformation to get out of the box and work more in a two to three-year horizon.
If you want to know more about how Multiplica can help you become more relevant to your clients, feel free to contact Lucio Grimaldi, US Tribe Leader at Multiplica.