Key Insights
- 90% of leaders believe Covid will change their business permanently
- 75% believe the pandemic has offered an opportunity for growth
- 80% of executives believe innovation is important to their growth strategy
In a post-pandemic world, it is essential to focus on economic recovery as well as ramping up growth to cover any missed opportunities. With 90% of organisations believing that the Covid pandemic will fundamentally change the way they do business in the future, the secret of growth is in the ability to pivot, innovate and be flexible with your business structure.
As we move forward past the pandemic, we’re now entering a new age of innovation. 75% of organisations believe the post-crisis world has created new opportunities for growth. Now, it is essential for businesses to not only see these opportunities but seize them.
Building An Innovative Organisation
Looking to create a more innovative, creative and flexible business? Consider these critical innovation factors:
1. Develop A Composable Business
Voted as the Marketing Word of the Year 2020, ‘pivot’ has become synonymous with fast-paced, adaptable businesses. We saw fashion houses pivot to PPE production, restaurants pivot to meal kits and delivery services and streaming services pivot from advertising revenue to new pricing structures.
In order to make successful, flexible pivots, it can help to have a composable business structure.
What is a composable business structure?
The best way to understand a composable business structure is to think of your business as having interchangeable building blocks. Each aspect of your business will have a modular set up, meaning you can arrange and rearrange each block depending on demand. It also makes it clear on where you need internal or external support for each module.
There are three main components of a composable business structure:
- Composable architecture
- Composable technology
- Composable creativity and thinking.
Focusing on this modular set up can offer a range of benefits, including greater speed, agility, resilience and leadership.
Composable Case Study
During the pandemic, Services Australia became overwhelmed with enquiries. Unable to offer in-person appointments, Services Australia embraced a composable business structure and switched their in-person appointments to telephone or online appointments.
Furthermore, to increase security with these new technologies, Services Australia deployed voiceprint technology. This is a way to confirm identity using voice biometrics that is similar to a fingerprint.
Now, over 1.2 million users can access voiceprint technology and consequently have seen a 600% increase in the use of digital assistants to maintain fast responses.
2. Focus On Internet Of Behaviour
The next aspect of innovation is the growing use of the internet of behaviour. This data mining process can deep dive into behaviours and preferences. Consequently, it is possible to improve the user experience, streamline offerings and enhance the value chain. By focusing on user behaviour, it can ensure value is delivered throughout the process and is closely aligned to what users need and want.
The benefit of deploying the internet of behaviour is a distinct competitive advantage. With predictive analysis, your organisation can refine and redefine each offering and transform your business based on data analytics, behavioural science, and real-time insights.
Key considerations for Internet of Behaviour
Data insight can be invaluable. This is especially true when a recent Gallup study found that less than half of employees believed they knew what was important to their customers. Furthermore, fewer than 33% of workers believed that customer feedback leads to significant improvements.
Internet Of Behaviour Case Study
With government guidance on the hospitality sector, it is important for events to manage capacity, foot flow and occupancy control. The internet of behaviour can use smart cameras to track customer behaviour and respond accordingly. For example, this may be blocking areas off that are over-capacity, providing wait times for facilities and queue management or ensuring a safe social distancing.
3. Embrace Autonomous Things
A market that is growing rapidly and offers a wealth of benefits to innovative businesses is the use of autonomous things (AuT). These are the devices that work without requiring human interaction and are, instead powered by algorithms.
The ability to utilise AuT is becoming more accessible thanks to the lower costs and their increasing capabilities. Already, over 25 countries are working on autonomous vehicles. It is even expected that there will be 8 million autonomous vehicles put to work by 2025.
Autonomous things can help with a range of business processes and services, including;
- Delivery drones
- Smart robots
- Self-driving cars
- Data collectors
- Manufacturing and assembly processes
Autonomous Things Case Study
Liverpool John Moores University is utilising autonomous things by developing autonomous drone systems that can not only track endangered species but collect vital information about their habits and behaviours. Capturing these insights using AuT can help researchers to create strategies for their protection.
Creating A Culture Of Innovation
Agility, growth and flexibility will all be essential to businesses who want to build a 360-degree innovation approach. When studies show that innovative organisations grow faster and with greater profitability, it is vital to look for ways to build innovation into every process.
Core considerations to build a culture of innovation include;
- Increasing communication across the whole organisation for greater feedback
- Involve customers and consider their behaviours in key business decisions
- Celebrate creativity and invest in leadership development to foster a creative spirit
- Shift from managing to coaching to allow more free-thinking and encouragement
- Build in continuous feedback loops that enhance performance and allow risk-taking
- Maintain a customer-centric environment and embrace all ideas and innovations.
