Innovation for what?

In my professional life, my work was always linked somehow with innovation. Especially in the past 4 years, I was working very close to this subject and even had the experience to lead a remarkably interesting initiative in an open innovation environment. And although lots of companies are truly looking into innovation as an important way to stand (or outstand) in the market, it is interesting to notice that many of them are not aware on what to do with innovation – or worst: why are they doing that?

Companies that are doing that – investing in innovation without a clear purpose or intent –  are clearly throwing money and time away. In this sense, the Cheshire Cat's advice in Lewis Carrol's "Alice in the Wonderland" makes all sense: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there". And what should be that intent or purpose?

In a recent article published here at LinkedIn that inspired me writing this note, @Camila Farani (privet investor and Forbes columnist, among others) wrote the obvious: the customer should be the main reason for a company to invest in innovation! The companies and any organization should pay attention on the customer's real needs, taking that as the start point for their initiatives on innovation!

It is not easy and not always your customer will be able to solve or even express the issues and problems they are facing! And, to deliver an interesting, efficient solution, you will need a deep understanding on those subjects!

Again: invest on identifying the bottlenecks and in a way to help them solving that. In many situations, you will not need the ultimate technology nor a super algorithm to scrutinize or corelate all the available data in the universe. As in life, sometimes, less is more when we are talking about innovation.

Keep in mind that the customer's experience does not start when they buy your product or service and is not over after the use of that. Your company should act having in mind the customer's point of view: does my product (or service) really reach all their expectations?

At last: if you are thinking innovation, it is important to develop an innovative mind and to bring that to your company, your team, and your business. Based on that, it is important for you to know the different kinds of innovation, to understand which one fit best with your business or what you are intending to do. But this is a matter for another post.