Defining Innovation as a Service
Innovation as a Service (IaaS) is a strategy where companies focus on continuously innovating and developing new solutions for their customers through a dedicated team of innovators. Rather than innovating only when needed or on an ad-hoc basis, organizations adopting IaaS make innovation a core part of their operations and services. For many businesses today, the pace of change is only accelerating. New technologies, regulations, trends and competitors emerge constantly. To stay ahead in this dynamic landscape, companies must continually reinvent themselves and deliver new value to customers. IaaS provides a framework and support system for doing just that.
Building the Innovation Team
The first step in implementing Innovation as a Service is to establish a dedicated innovation team. This group is solely focused on ideating, testing and launching new solutions, separate from regular product development or operations. Companies will want to select team members with diverse backgrounds, skill sets and experiences to spark new ideas. People from technology, marketing, customer service and other disciplines all bring unique perspectives. Leadership should also empower this team with the autonomy, budget and resources needed to experiment freely without bureaucracy slowing progress. Physical workspace separate from the main business can foster creativity and collaboration within the innovation team as well.
Gathering Customer Insights
To develop solutions customers truly want and need, the innovation team must have a deep understanding of current and potential users. This requires robust insight gathering processes. Qualitative research methods like interviews, focus groups and ethnography provide rich, nuanced perspectives. Quantitative surveys and experiments help validate hypotheses with statistical significance. Analytics on customer behavior and transactions also yield hidden patterns. By combining various research approaches, the team paints a multidimensional picture of customer pains, desires and opportunities for new value creation. This insight foundation guides subsequent ideation and development phases.
Idea Generation and Testing
With customer understanding in hand, the innovation group begins incubating new ideas. Brainstorming sessions tapping diverse thinkers will surface many potential concepts. Concept testing exposes proposed solutions to real customers at an early stage to evaluate feasibility and desirability. Low-fidelity prototyping and mockups at this phase minimize costs and risks. Customers provide feedback to iterate and refine concepts, with unviable ideas failing fast before major investment. Over time, the most promising opportunities enter formal product development or are licensed to partners for commercialization depending on strategic fit.
Launch and Measure Success
For innovations advanced out of the incubation phase, structured launch planning and execution is important. Pilot programs roll out minimum viable products to validate value in a live setting before wider release. Marketing, support processes and other elements prepare for broader availability. Success is then measured against relevant key performance indicators like customer retention, wallet share gained or problems solved. Quantitative and qualitative data jointly assess business and experience outcomes. The innovation team applies lessons to refine initiatives and lay the groundwork for successor innovations, continuously nurturing the company’s evolution.
Applying IaaS Across Industries
While the specific execution of IaaS may differ depending on industry dynamics and customers served, the core principles remain the same. In business-to-business sales, for example, the innovation team conducts deep dive sessions with client decision makers to uncover unmet demands in their workflows. B2C digital services firms running constant usability studies inform constant enhancements. Medical technology innovators jointly develop solutions with clinicians to improve care. Manufacturers deploy combination of employee ideation challenges, maker spaces and agile product development. Regardless of sector, the dedicated innovation resources and mindset of IaaS future-proofs companies against disruption through relentless creation of new value.
Overcoming Common Challenges
Naturally, establishing an effective IaaS practice involves overcoming potential challenges as well. Management buy-in for dedicated innovation spends requires articulating expected returns. Teams need protected time, space and prioritization amid daily operational demands. Measuring success of less tangible initiatives differs from traditional metrics. Customers may resist radical changes from trusted brands at first. Innovation portfolios carrying more diverse risks require tailored governance. Building robust customer empathy capabilities takes sustained investment. Leaders committed to addressing such organizational, cultural and process barriers unlock the power of continuous innovation through IaaS.
*Note:
- Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
- We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
