Embracing Innovation in Today’s Market
In today’s fast-paced business environment, standing still is not an option. Companies must continuously innovate and adapt to changing customer needs, new technologies, and competitive threats in order to thrive and grow. However, internal R&D departments often lack the bandwidth, expertise, or fresh perspective needed to develop truly breakthrough ideas. This is where innovation as a service (IaaS) providers can help. By tapping into their networks of designers, developers, researchers and other innovation specialists, IaaS makes it possible for any company to access the creativity and problem-solving skills required to innovate on-demand.
Outsourcing Innovation to Free Up Internal Resources
Rather than trying to be experts in every domain themselves, modern businesses are realizing they can achieve more by leveraging outside partners’ specialized skills. Innovation as a Service consultants work collaboratively with clients to understand their strategic priorities and pain points, then apply human-centered design thinking and agile workflow methods to quickly prototype and test new solutions. This process frees up internal employees to focus on their core competencies while still delivering innovation outcomes. Companies spanning industries as diverse as manufacturing, healthcare, financial services and more are turning to IaaS providers to fuel new product R&D, improve processes, enter new markets and stay ahead of disruption.
Gaining Unique Insights Through Diverse Perspectives
Another key advantage of IaaS is the diversity of thought it introduces. Innovation consultants come from a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds, and may have deep experience in sectors outside a client’s own domain. This cross-pollination sparks novel associations and helps surface insights that in-house teams can miss due to familiarity and entrenchment. IaaS practitioners also maintain extensive networks among innovators, academics, startups and more which become an extension of their clients’ innovation reach. Their facilitation of ideation workshops further draws on diversity to generate a wider range of creative solutions than internal brainstorming alone. The fresh perspectives unleashed through IaaS have helped many companies solve tough problems in innovative new ways.
Rapid Experimentation and Agile Delivery of New Concepts
Rather than lengthy product development cycles, IaaS favors rapid experimentation through methods like design thinking, agile development and lean startup techniques. This means new ideas can be tested in the marketplace much faster using minimum viable products (MVPs) and iterative prototyping. Valuable feedback is incorporated quickly into subsequent iterations to improve concepts before major investments are made. The nimble, outside-in perspective of IaaS providers also ensures new solutions are designed with customers and end-users in mind from the very beginning. This human-centered approach, coupled with rapid testing and pivoting, dramatically improves the odds of creating innovations people want versus relying solely on internal assumptions and market research. Transformational new offerings are delivered to clients and the public much more rapidly through IaaS.
Uncovering Hidden Opportunities for Growth
Most companies have untapped potential for growth and new revenue streams within existing operations and relationships – they simply need help unearthing these opportunities. IaaS consultants deploy a variety of discovery methodologies like customer journey mapping, reverse innovation analysis and stakeholder interviews to holistically analyze organizations from multiple perspectives. Gaps, inefficiencies, underserved customer segments and adjacent markets are often uncovered this way that internal teams may have overlooked due to entrenchment. From there, IaaS can guide development of concrete strategies, pilot programs and business model experiments to profitably capture these “white spaces”. This discovery-driven innovation mindset has opened up whole new lines of business for many forward-thinking firms.
Overcoming Cultural Hurdles to Change
Finally, the outsider role of IaaS can help companies shake up stagnant thinking and drive organizational transformation in ways an inside team may struggle with. Established corporate cultures can become reticent to big changes, but outside experts are not beholden to legacy mindsets or internal politics. IaaS practitioners apply tools like design thinking to challenge assumptions across all levels and bring different functions together. They also serve as a neutral party that helps various internal stakeholders align behind a common innovation agenda despite disagreements. The external fresh start provided by IaaS empowers major cultural shifts that successfully implement innovation at scale within organizations.
In summary, the unique skills, diverse perspectives and collaborative style that innovation as a service providers bring to the table give any business the innovative DNA required to achieve ongoing growth and success. Whether surfacing new business models, improving existing operations or disrupting oneself, today’s corporations would be wise to leverage IaaS to maintain a competitive edge in uncertain times. Those who do so will find their capacity for breakthrough innovation is amplified far beyond what internal teams could accomplish alone.
*Note:
- Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
- We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
