Innovation potentials and partnerships

Creativity drives innovation. It requires curiosity and allows us to ask questions like “What if ...?”, “Why ...?” or “How can we ...?” Confident, constructive questions help us apply our skills and resources in a targeted manner. A corporate environment that simultaneously promotes creativity and curiosity creates space for innovation.

Putting all our ideas in one basket, making sure they are on the agenda and hoping that one of them will make it to the implementation phase will achieve very little. Only few ideas are inherently good. In most cases, a company is faced with a systematic, labour-intensive process of optimisation. Creativity must be maintained throughout this process until the new product or business model is ready to be launched.

Digital transformation is changing the value chain and companies must continually rethink and redefine their positioning. This provides the opportunity to use our own skills to occupy new business areas and actively shape their development. Forward-looking companies will optimise, streamline and adapt processes or even replace them with new ones. Everything can be questioned and everything should be reconsidered. The more employees adopt this kind of entrepreneurial spirit, the more sustainable the new solutions are likely to be.

Genuine innovation creates tangible added value for customers. That is why it is important to follow the approach of working on the project with the client. The more closely a company works with its customers, the greater its access to targeted feedback. This creates new products and services that have an excellent chance of being scalable. Entirely new requirements that no-one knew existed may also be created. In this case, entrepreneurial foresight is particularly useful, because it is important to develop a new market and establish a new vision.

In everyday life, most of us are innovative and seek the best solution for ourselves. In turn, every employee is also a potential innovator, because they know exactly where intelligent solutions are in short supply. To generate innovation internally, companies must trust their employees, encourage them, urge them to try things out and, last but not least, provide the necessary support if things go wrong. This requires an open and flexible corporate culture, as innovation can only work externally if it also works internally.

Innovation should be useful and meaningful for both customers and the market. Only if customers are really impressed by the new product can the innovation also gain the necessary acceptance in the market and within the company. Market relevance also allows employees to notice the value added by their efforts. This motivates them to continue moving forward. It provides an excellent environment for a company’s overall ability to innovate.

Many companies have reservations and difficulties when it comes to leaving their own sphere of influence, sharing knowledge, engaging in dialogue and interaction and developing new products, services and business models beyond the confines of a specific industry. However, inspiration usually only occurs when two knowledge holders share ideas in the form of interdisciplinary projects spanning departments and sectors. Business innovation is never the result of an individual person, but always the result of teamwork.

Innovation requires the ability to patiently experiment and continue to develop, change direction when necessary and keep an eye on the bigger picture. This is even more true if we not only want to satisfy an existing requirement with new products and services, but also create new requirements. Complex innovation projects can only progress if they have long-term momentum.

Promising innovations are created wherever in-depth business knowledge and new digital technologies converge. Established companies often wonder how to approach innovation, while start-ups often lack the experience of established practice. This calls for partnerships and collaboration on projects: companies can gain access to talent and technological knowledge and start-ups can acquire practical experience and potential customers, creating a win-win situation for both sides.

Strategic resolve is one of the main prerequisites for developing new products and services. A company’s medium and long-term innovation targets should therefore be aligned with its overarching corporate strategy and measured using transparent criteria. It is not possible to pursue every idea. The portfolio of new products should be extremely diverse and resources should be used in a focused and efficient manner.