5 areas of innovation that are widely known, not really that innovative and yet so hard to be realized.

Innovation, purpose, impact are those kinds of words that easily go over C-level lips each and every day. And it is true, some of the corporations and companies are innovative, add responsibility to their existence and have an impact in a people, planet and profit triangle. Let’s have a look at where those things commonly are centered around.

1 - The Material innovation

Across industries, climate change and pressures for transparency are putting innovation in materials at the core of any conversation about sourcing, production, packaging and recycling of materials. The vectors are clearly saving resources, weight and costs as well as contributing to full-cycle economies to help save our planet.??

Once futuristic-sounding materials and opportunities are now real competitive advantages on multiple levels.

2 - The Customer Experience Innovation

First of all, the customer experience is the major reason consumers choose a brand. Period. Way before product quality - which is perceived as a given - or even brand image - what is driving relevant memory structures. Yet most of us are not able to name a couple of brands that constantly deliver compelling, consistent and convenient or even exceptional experiences across the customer journey. We all learned to live in the void of brand and product aspiration versus its realities. There is a lot of untapped potential by connecting the different steps of the journey in a seamless flow and this is where some of the most important innovation wins will happen.

3 - The Media Innovation

We can agree that the streaming wars are here to stay and are constantly reshaping the moving images consumption model. I didn’t say disrupting on purpose. We can also agree that the next media evolution is about convenience and accessibility as much as engendering trust. And we can also agree the next media evolution will be technologically driven by AI and AR. But the real innovation is happening around the personalization imperative and resides around totally un-sexy topics like CRM, customer service, e-commerce platform management and having a single user database.

4 - The Commerce Innovation

Where, what and how we buy is constantly changing. As well as how and when we pay. The underlying principle still will remain the context of when and where the purchase is triggered. At a certain time, in a certain mood or at a certain location. This is what Chinese superapps are already hyper-growing with and this is what we in the global north still call social commerce and in good old fashion try to build insular solutions for and then try to activate them while the Alibabas and Tencents of the world are just rolling out purchase and payment solutions across their user base. The innovation here is to open up new revenue streams while keeping in focus a single consumer’s point of view. Very hard, Facebook can tell.

5 - The Organizational Innovation

If you have read this article about possible fields of innovation to this point and find yourself in an organization that defines innovation as a role or a specialized activity for a team - you have a problem. No one will solve innovation tasks if they are not everyone’s responsibility across the organization. And there is an entire field of study that spans from sociology, management, strategy, design, behavioral economics, bureaucracy, physiology and more exclusively dedicated to the question of innovative organizations. But in short: your average company is not built to allow the success of innovations. Solving this problem starts with understanding that organizations default to institution > individual > output whereas to be innovative they must develop to individual > institution > impact.