In a highly competitive market, companies need to optimize the way they use their resources. This is necessary to keep them relevant to their customers. In this scenario, the implementation of innovation management is of great importance.
Through it, companies of all sizes and areas of activity can face their processes and the market they are targeting in a completely new way. This allows them to find opportunities for improvement and even new approaches and actions.
Would you like to understand more about this management model? Then read this article and find out how to use innovation management for the benefit of your company!
What is innovation management?
Innovation can be described as creating or updating something to generate value and thus benefitting individuals. By rethinking a company’s processes and analyzing the market in which it operates more accurately, managers can observe several opportunities to cut costs, increase production levels and even develop new products.
In this context, the process of systematization of innovations, elaborated to constantly improving a company’s operation with new ideas and strategies, is what we call innovation management.
It is important because it helps companies develop new concepts for processes, products and services, making room for them to become more competitive. This allows them to grow healthily even in competitive markets.
How to implement it in a company?
Given the benefits of this systematization and innovation process, it’s easy to see that it’s worth implementing. Continue reading to find out how to perform this task!
Establish the company’s culture of innovation
Innovative companies have their professionals prepared to think about the execution of activities in an analytical way, which optimizes the discovery of new opportunities. To reach this level, obviously, a company needs to prepare.
First, it is important to have an innovation sector responsible, both for receiving and developing new ideas and for analyzing and putting them into action when they are able to generate value for the company. Since innovation is directly linked to autonomy, this sector must necessarily be registered in the organization chart of the company with proper status. The innovation industry also needs to have its own manager to manage it, managing innovation strategies and monitoring its performance.
The company also needs to empower its employees so that they have a closer look at corporate processes. It should provide a channel for employees to communicate their ideas.
Finally, the participation of employees in the innovation process should be encouraged. This means, among other things, that your ideas must be heard. If they are unfeasible, it is up to the manager to point out the flawed points in his proposal, in a didactic way, without embarrassing them.
Search for success stories
Even when managers decide to support the innovative culture, it is common that there are some doubts and frictions in this process. After all, it involves the company’s resources and tends to require changes that, at least in the beginning, can generate some discomfort.
To mitigate possible frictions, it is a great idea for the manager and his team to make a case study and gather information about companies that have succeeded with innovation management. Although simple, this attitude helps reassure other business controllers and increases their support for the project.
Consider the importance of information
When we think of innovation, one of the most important factors is access to information. This is because, without a reliable data source, the task of identifying opportunities, whether related to increasing productivity or creating new products and services, becomes impractical.
For this reason, technologies such as Big Data and Machine Learning are important. Through them, the innovation team can access all the data it needs to perform its functions.
Use Technology to your advantage
The intelligent use of technologies is inherent in the innovation management process. To implement innovative management in a company, the personnel responsible for the task need to use the tools at their disposal wisely.
Among these tools, cloud computing can be seen as one of the most important. By outsourcing the computing power of a cloud server, the company can implement data capture and analysis solutions without investing in a more robust IT framework. This is beneficial as it does not compromise factors such as safety and efficiency.
Software and applications are also handy tools for this process. Depending on their functions, they can perform tasks such as optimizing data calculation and monitoring processes practised by the company. They can also be used in favour of team communication or in carrying out other activities indispensable for implementing innovation management in the company.
What are the main challenges involved in managing innovation?
Although innovation management has many advantages for companies, it is undeniable that, when implementing new processes, some mistakes tend to arise. Thus, correctly addressing the risks is one of the biggest challenges related to this procedure.
In this case, the risks of each project must be properly weighed before it is implemented. It is worth mentioning that even if the idea is not successful, the innovation sector can obtain a lot of useful data by analyzing the factors that made it unfeasible.
Another challenge of innovation management is the task of raising funds to finance projects. The best way to deal with this problem is to conduct a very detailed case study and make use of solid data to convince other managers. This same care should be taken in the elaboration of specific projects.
In a competitive market, companies that rely on innovation management are more likely to develop. However, to acquire this status, it is necessary to prepare employees to acquire a more analytical view of processes and the market. The intelligent use of technologies, especially those that optimize data storage and verification, is also critical.
