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What’s New in Corporate Innovation – Dec 18, 2017

What’s New in Corporate Innovation – Dec 18, 2017

By Jaimie O’Byrne

Hello folks, and welcome to our first edition of “What’s New in Corporate Innovation.” Everyone’s talking about innovation these days – a profusion of content ranging from social posts on Medium and LinkedIn to the hallowed pages of HBR and the Economist – and everything in between. In each post, we’ll highlight a few noteworthy pieces and explain why they’re worth reading.

What’s new with the Internet of Things? (McKinsey)

In this piece, McKinsey consultants summarize the findings from a research study into corporate adoption of IoT technologies. Despite the potential for IoT to generate between $4T and $11T of economic value by 2025, it would seem that the IoT uptake has been stubbornly slow, with most of industries stuck at the proof of concept stage. Simple use cases seem to be a fixation for most companies, which means that the IoT is not yet being used to its full potential. This creates a variety of opportunities for firms operating at the vanguard.

Imaginatik’s take: IoT is an ongoing trend to connect physical objects to the internet – along with the data they generate. It has received an inordinate amount of hype – much of it deserved. Corporate innovators need to understand how this mega-trend will affect their industry – because it will. It’s nice to see a piece that takes a nuanced, level-headed look at what’s really happening, and where the biggest opportunities are.

Are You Ready to Become Obsolete? (Huffington Post)

In this piece from Huffington Post, Josh Bersin discusses what you personally need to do to stay with or ahead of the game at work in order to avoid becoming obsolete. Bersin is quick to mention ‘learning agility’ a very powerful phrase used by psychologists to describe your ability to rapidly learn new things. He also suggests that by reading, getting to know the experts in your field and how they work, coupled with playing around with new trends, approaches and technologies.

Imaginatik’s take: Continuous reinvention comes from within. Within the individual and then from within the business. Corporate Innovators will be learning that engaging from within and giving a voice to their work force using the latest technologies available, thus giving way to fresh ideas and enabling more innovative thinking is the way they will maintain their position as an industry leader, or grow into it for those just starting out in this space. If employees avoid obsolescence in their skills and behaviors, ultimately so will the company. This piece gives valuable tips about how to start your own personal reinvention that could make way for your future success and that of your company.

Building an Ecosystem for Innovation (New Statesman)

Building an ecosystem for innovation. According to Natalie Drucker, Mark Collin, and Nima Monterazi, designing a master plan for a thriving digital enterprise years in advance is simply not feasible. This article discusses the need to put the citizens, rather than the technology, at the core of the requisite changes. According to the New Statesman, the future lies in using employee and customer engagement to create a citizen-centric CaaP (city as a platform). In particular, the GDS (UK Government Digital Service) is a great example of a citizen-driven design that has increased weekly visitors and decreased operational costs by millions.

Imaginatik’s take: The Digital Cities of the (near?) future are coming sooner than you might think. However, much like ‘innovating from the core’ within an enterprise, in order for cities to access the best data to drive positive change, they need to be people focused or ‘citizen-centric’. This isn’t a new concept, but the implementation of this strategy remains a stumbling block! Most corporate innovators will recognize similar challenges in their quest to become more customer-centric – providing useful lessons in what the most forward-thinking cities are doing (and which technologies will matter), and suggesting similar lessons that can be applied within an enterprise setting.

Australia’s Digital Ecosystems (EIU / The Economist Intelligence Unit)

The authors of this EIU study, sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, shed light on how the Australian economy is adapting to the emerging Digital Age. They discuss how cross industry collaboration has become a key to running a successful business, how its startup ecosystem has flourished in recent years, and how latent conservatism within large corporations could still imperil the speed of the Australia’s digital transition.

Imaginatik’s take: When new, hot technologies and business trends ripple aggressively through the marketplace, those of us in North America and Europe often blithely assume that next-gen solutions will materialize in our own backyards. Yet that is not always the case. To wit: Australia is home to important developments in the digital transformation of business and government. It provides an interesting comparative yardstick for other geographies, and a useful gut-check against hyperbole and nativism for our collective sense of how tech trends are shaping up. Particularly noteworthy is Australia’s experience creating digital ecosystems by coupling its strong mining and agriculture sectors with digital accelerators and innovation labs. These efforts may give them ‘unique strengths’ in these disciplines over other parts of the world.

Digital Transformation, or stalled execution? (Ralph Welborn Imaginatik CEO)

“75% of all digital transformations fail”. Ralph discusses capturing new sources of value in new ways focusing on Customers, Assets and Ecosystems among other factors. Ralph speaks about organizations on the digital transformation journey, the common challenges they face, and provides some essential guidelines on overcoming them

Who are your top sources for innovation inspiration? To learn more about how to create a culture of innovation through continuous reinvention, click here.

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