Innovation — an Action or a Consequence?
Innovation — one of the most talked about word in tech companies, a buzz word in CIOs and CXOs circls now a days. Almost every company today claim to be DOING innovation. Organizations are creating separate departments (innovation labs, Center of Excellence etc…) to DO innovation. Top management has given highest priorities to innovation in vision of the company and communicating it to the workforce through various channels to align the employees and get them on the bandwagon. It has become not the only source of growth but also only means of survival (at least the way it is projected).
Whether its product or service company everyone claims to have expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Conversational UIs, BlockChain, Automation etc. Everyone has demos and proof of concepts ready and presenting as their innovations (though with almost similar use cases). In a rush to be innovative, organisations are now selling the word “Innovation” itself than creating innovative products or services. Now in this race, Innovation itself becomes the most misused word in the industry.
But question here is can someone really DO innovation or innovation is a Consequence of what someone does?
Secondly, should we only focus on innovation or there is something more important to achieve growth?
In my opinion identifying a Problem and converting it into Opportunity is more important than creating POCs using some fancy technologies. So, before looking for ways on how should we do innovation, we must ask, What is the problem? and How can we solve it?
Problem can be a business problem or a technical issue. There can be multiple solutions to resolve the problem. Solution can be something which is already tried and tested, it can be completely unique, it can be disruptive or a simple workaround.
Broadly these are categorized as:
- Innovation: Solutions which are unique and changes the way we are use to do certain things or shakes up the industry. These solutions are disruptive in nature. Some of the examples are personal computers displaced typewriters, email displaced letter writing or social networking has major impact on personal communication, Uber brought revolution in transportation.
- Imitation: In this category solutions may not be unique but they are disruptive in nature. example can be Alibaba or Ola cabs, though they are not unique solutions to solve a particular problem but they are disruptive in nature in their sphere of influence.
- Solution: A solution is just a solution which is not disruptive in nature and may or may not be unique but good enough to solve your problem. For example “Cash on Delivery” option in eCommerce. Though it is a unique solution but not disruptive one as it has fixed the problem of expanding eCommerce to users who don’t have online banking account/ credit card/ debit card or who don’t have confidence in making online payments on shopping sites but it has not done a ground breaking change to the working of eCommerce.
As discussed above same problem can have multiple solutions and solutions can be innovative, can be imitation of some existing solution or can be some work around. So, how will you decide which solution to chose? Answer to this depends on, Return on Investment (ROI). You must evaluate ROI based on resources in hand for each solution and then take the decision.
So, point here is not about being in favor or against innovation but it’s about looking at the things in correct perspective and not just carried away with buzz words.
Originally published at https://tekspry.medium.com on April 3, 2021.
