Igniting innovative strength

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The ignition key for the engine of success

What is the future made of?
What drives people and what are the most groundbreaking solutions based on?

In this blog post, you will not only learn why innovative strength is important for companies, but we will also take a look together at methods that improve the ability to innovate.

With clear and concise explanations, you will receive impulses regarding innovations and learn why innovative strength is important.

Innovative strength - what is it and why is it important?

Creativity, imagination, ingenuity, creative spirit - the list of synonyms for innovative strength could go on and on. All terms have one meaning: they describe the ability to develop new products, services or processes through creative ideas, flexible adaptation and a little bit of risk-taking.

Why is innovative strength important?

Innovative strength is crucial for personal and corporate growth, competitiveness and adaptability.

As an innovation or project manager, you should set the pace for the trends of tomorrow.

Can innovation be measured?

There are a few key figures that you can use to measure the success of your work.

Innovation rate

The innovation rate establishes a link between sales revenue generated by innovations and total sales. The rate shows the percentage of total sales contributed by new innovations.

Innovation quota

The innovation ratio can be used to determine the proportion of innovations in the company's overall product range.

Innovation portfolio

Analyzing the innovation portfolio provides an overview of whether the product range is outdated or driven by innovation.

Degree of innovation

How innovative is a company really? Relate the product to its purpose in order to determine novelty. The renowned German economist Jürgen Hauschildt has developed this indicator. It shows whether innovations are incremental, purpose-induced, means-induced or breakthrough innovations.

True or false?

"New ideas are expensive"

121.4 billion euros were spent on research and development in Germany in 2022, according to the Federal Statistical Office. But that doesn't mean that innovation managers necessarily need a large budget. Because anyone can use their innovative strength to be innovative. The important thing is to know what a target group really wants.

"Only true geniuses have the power to innovate!"

Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla - these are just three of the greatest innovators. But do you also know Josephine Cochrane? Josephine was not an engineer by training, she was just annoyed by the broken dishes when washing up. So she invented the dishwasher. Not a genius, but an ingenious inventor!

"First come first serve - innovations only work if you are the first to develop them!"

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, because there are different types of innovation:

• Revolutionary innovation: A completely new technology, service or something else is developed.
• Evolutionary innovation: Is the continuous improvement of existing ideas.
• Frugal innovation: Further development that focuses on core functionalities, e.g. to improve performance or reduce costs.

Explained clearly and concisely: How to increase innovative strength through design thinking

Even if you are bursting with innovative energy, the brilliant idea can take a little work. That's why you should try out the design thinking method.

What is design thinking?

Identify new needs and develop new solutions and ideas as a team. The approach is iterative, customer-centered, problem-solving focused and relies on creativity and collaboration. Originating from the field of design, Larry Leifer, professor at Stanford, transferred the approach to other areas.

The problem-solving process

The design thinking process consists of six phases:

1. Understand
2. Observe
3. Develop concept
4. Develop an idea
5. Modeling
6. Testing

Once you have understood what the initial problem is and have defined it, your understanding should be supported by observations. What do customers say, for example? Then develop a concept as a roadmap. Now comes the creative phase: put ideas on paper with your team, several at once.

Sometimes the ability to innovate means breaking new ground, even if it does not lead directly to success.

Have you identified a profitable idea? Put it into practice! A prototype can be tested extensively by the innovation team, but also by customers.

Analysis and data as a basis

Don't forget: It always starts with an inventory!

Use the key figures described to measure innovation capability and look for reference points by which you can measure the success of an innovation process afterwards.

How many customers have complained about the product? How many different problems were there? How high are the costs due to these problems?

After the innovation process, the old status can be compared with new data.

Use tools to find new ideas, increase and channel innovation

AnyIdea is an AI innovation platform that offers numerous opportunities to promote innovative thinking and innovative strength. Data-based and with AI, you can identify important trends and develop fresh ideas, solutions and suggestions for specific topics.

With AnyIdea, not only employees, but also partners, customers, experts, interested parties and many others can develop ideas together (open innovation). After all, innovative strength is always created when people come together and dedicate themselves to a collective task.

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Contact

Would you like to find out more about how AnyIdea can help your company generate ideas or approach open innovation in a practical way? We would be happy to give you practical insights and show you possible use cases!

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• Contact us at contact@anyidea.ai.
• Arrange a demo with us right here.
• Sign up and try AnyIdea.

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