By Isabell Petzelt, Global Vice President of Customer Innovation and Strategy, Technology and Innovation, SAP
Innovation often feels like playing an organizational whack-a-mole game. Every time a new challenge pops up, businesses pour considerable time, money, and resources into taking a swat at resolving it. Yet all too often, the solution comes too late as another – possibly more significant – problem replaces the last one.
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Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Despite making massive investments in digital projects, 65% of organizations, according to IDC research, undergo digital efforts that are not sufficient enough to achieve their ultimate objectives.
But don’t be fooled: the intent of your innovation projects is not causing this rift between investments and outcomes. It’s the lack of support for your specific use cases and applications.
Turn innovation theater into business impact
Innovation efforts are increasingly focused on making processes more intelligent and automated, leveraging and enhancing the digital core to support the transition. This experience can be tremendously streamlined and transformational when executed in a standardized IT environment. However, ease gives way to complexity once a specific use case is chosen, especially when a packaged application, user interface extension, or add-on is not available to support it out of the box.
Despite the risk, a lot is said for exercising creative latitude to produce differentiating advantages. Companies can explore new ways to mobilize proprietary processes, embed real-time knowledge and insight into individual user interfaces, support new interaction types on top of existing channels, or bring an unprecedented business model to life.
All of these capabilities are often accomplished with a platform, where extensions to the core are built precisely – as a prototype. That’s it, nothing more than innovation theater, no top- or bottom-line outcomes.
To avoid the proof-of-concept trap, businesses should embrace innovation that goes deeper than fueling change with only a platform or other software. Organizations and the entire ecosystem should also absorb and transform with the innovation. A combination of human-centric methodology, technology, and architectural thinking inspires a more human-centric approach as innovators actively listen to underlying gaps and expectations that users and end customers want addressed.
The resulting providence helps scale innovation more appropriately on a platform to deliver real-time business impact. Cutting-edge technology or business model innovation becomes strategically aligned with critical areas of massive future potential. The applied genius of internal innovators and third-party partners uncovers new customers and new markets to pursue. Furthermore, innovation projects become increasingly customer centric – inevitably defining the design, test-driving, and development of advanced solutions that are intelligent and tailored.
Experience the full potential of innovation with a trusted advisor
Data, insights, and technology assets are often considered the main ingredients for solving everyday business problems. But turning those solutions into sustainable growth in new markets and amid changing customer expectations calls for a trusted and proven partner that can orchestrate the right intelligent technologies and establish a continuous innovation life cycle.
