Internet trends: marketing research & predictions

Business Innovation Report: Innovation Strategy, Performance and Measurement

May 18th, 2016 by

The purpose of TrendsSpotting’s Business Innovation Report is to provide a deep understanding of innovation and its business potential. We will focus on innovation outcomes in terms of performance and present empirical findings linking innovation to business success. We introduce basic definitions of innovation, explore the most common forms of innovation (adding examples and case studies) and discuss disruptive innovation. We identify key innovation strategies developed and tested in academic and business research. We glance into rankings of the most innovative companies to learn on their performance and growth potential. Finally we will study how companies measure innovation and what parameters are critical for them to follow. At the end of the report, we have compiled an insightful “take away” and present extensive case study summarizing key innovation aspects in innovation implementation.

The 140 page PPT report is targeted at innovation stakeholders aiming to promote innovation efforts linked to business success & growth.

Keywords: • Product innovation • Process innovation • Marketing innovation • Organizational innovation • Case studies • Innovation Business Models • Innovation Value Chain • Open Innovation • Innovation Performance • Innovation Strategy • Innovator’s dilemma • Disruptive innovation • Investment behavior • Innovation intentions • Innovation and R&D • Innovation success • Innovation ranking • Innovation challenges • Innovation metrics

> Click here to learn more about the “Business Innovation Report”

View the following sample slide report:

more slides by TrendsSpotting

New! TrendsSpotting Innovation Reports

TrendsSpotting has complied two Innovation Research Reports exploring theories, models and practical implementation of innovation in business settings and inside the organization.

1. Business Innovation Report: Innovation Strategy, Performance and Measurement
2. Organizational Innovation Report:: Implementing innovation in organizations

Click to learn more about the Organizational Innovation Report and to view the report sample slides 

 

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Organizational Innovation Report: Implementing Innovation in Organizations

May 18th, 2016 by

In this TrendsSpotting Organizational Innovation Report we collect insights from business academic research and leading consultancies and observe related case studies, to come up with best practices for the implementation of innovation in organizations. We review models for innovation leadership, culture, innovation strategy and goals; discuss mechanisms for learning and knowledge sharing, and review the required set of incentives and rewards. Focusing on Innovation challenges we collect insights and best practices regarding strategy alignment, management support, idea generation and commercialization, speed, lean processes, innovation events and sharing platforms as well as innovation metrics. In search for optimal innovation implementation methods, we review studies on high performing companies and present case studies on how innovative companies implement innovation in their organization.

The 130 page PPT report “Organizational Innovation: Implementing innovation in organizations” is targeted at innovation stakeholders and aids in structuring the organization towards effective innovation.

Keywords: • Innovation leadership • Strategy & goals • Learning and Knowledge • Incentives and rewards • Innovation culture • Innovation and risk • Strategy alignment • Idea generation, • Idea selection • Commercialization • Innovation and speed • Lean processes • Innovation best practices • Innovation readiness • Innovation metrics • Open innovation • Hackathons • Innovation platforms • Innovation campaigns • Gamification • Gamification platforms

Click here to learn more about the Organizational Innovation Report

View the following sample slide report:

New! TrendsSpotting Innovation Reports

TrendsSpotting has complied two Innovation Research Reports exploring theories, models and practical implementation of innovation in business settings and inside the organization.

1. Business Innovation Report: Innovation Strategy, Performance and Measurement
2. Organizational Innovation Report: Implementing innovation in organizations

Click here to learn more about the Business Innovation Report and view report sample slide 

 

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Gamification as a tool for innovation

May 16th, 2016 by

TrendsSpotting has discussed “Gamification” in previous posts in  the context of “collective action” and crowd sourcing techniques.

In this article, we will explore the use of Gamification as a tool for innovation.

Gamification describes the broad trend of employing game mechanics to non-game environments such as innovation, marketing, training, employee performance, health and social change. Game elements can be competition, ranks or role-playing. It encourages users to engage in desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans’ psychological predisposition to engage in gaming. It can help achieve goals that are important for the organizers (developing innovative ideas), or even help complete tasks that are usually perceived boring (such as counting elements, translating words, completing surveys, shopping, or reviewing websites). I love giving the example of von Ahn, founder of CAPTCHA and Duolingo – who uses games to drive contribution in the most boring assignments.

As Online Sharing Platforms are getting more popular, dedicated gamification platforms were developed to address this specific opportunity. The Enterprise Gamification Consultancy researched gamification platforms and identified GamEffective, Infosys, Bunchball and Badgeville as gamification leaders, three platforms (Funifier, eMee, BizPart Engage) as gamification followers, and five platforms (Mambo.io, SAP, Playlyfe, Gamification-Engine, TribeCloud) as gamification contenders.

Gamification tips for effective innovation processes:

Similar to driving innovation campaigns in organizations, games serve as exciting tools for engagement and contribution.

For best capturing innovation via games, we suggest ensuring the following:

1. Clear goals: the game should provide well-defined rules that will help empower players and direct them to desired goals. Engaging narrative: Gamification builds a narrative that can excite participants and encourage their involvement. Efforts must be enjoyable.

2. Achievable tasks: Gamification should provide opportunities for short-term, achievable goals that will not create disappointment or lead to drop outs.

3. Risk free environment: Evaluation should be based on contribution, not on titles or rank. Participants must feel comfortable to introduce ideas with no fear (good feedback is very important).  In some situations, it might be worth to consider anonymity of participants.

4. A smooth route from games to business: Gamiification organizer should plan when participants stop playing and start utilizing more rational thinking, which will allow idea adoption and implementation.

 

This article is part of the new TrendsSpotting Innovation Report: “Organizational Innovation – Implementing Innovation in Organizations. Research Review and Case Studies

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10 tips for effective enterprise innovation campaign:

April 24th, 2016 by

Innovation stakeholders are currently dealing with innovation pushed forward by different departments in the organisation: Strategy, Communication, HR, IT and more. They all share the understanding that innovation is critical for the survival of the company and that innovation processes are important for motivating employees to contribute more efforts and share their insights.

Working on variety of innovation campaigns, I’ve gathered a list of suggestions for effective enterprise innovation campaign:

1. You have to create innovative campaigns in order to yield innovative outcomes. Be creative with the leading concept, make employees excited for the upcoming campaign.

2. Plan a short duration campaign with focused targets and leading concept which is engaging and fun to all. It is important that the concept will be relevant and meaningful.

3. Use multi-channel communication to invite employees (physical posters, social media, SMS, emails, personal requests, CEO call out).

4. Make sure that the platform you’re using is self-guided and easy to operate. Provide examples for ideas so participants will understand what you expect from them.

5. Provide relevant incentives for participation (meaningful rewards, empowering recognition).

6. Ensure participation and high involvement of senior managers and company leaders.

7. For the selection phase, pre-compile evaluation parameters that meet campaign strategy and goals. It’s important that the reviewers will be chosen carefully and that the evaluation process will be transparent.

8. Throughout the campaign, you will need to keep participants active (posting, commenting and voting) – send reminders, status alerts, feedback, notification on progress.

9. The campaign might end with the selection of the best idea – but campaign owner must be responsible to keep everyone updated with the progress of the development and execution of the ideas chosen. Employees will continue sharing ideas only if they see their top suggestions seriously considered.

10. Avoid running too many campaigns in one year so you won’t get employees tired of these efforts.

This article is part of the new TrendsSpotting Innovation Report: “Organizational Innovation – Implementing Innovation in Organizations. Research Review and Case Studies

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Enterprise Innovation Platforms and Online Innovation Campaigns

April 19th, 2016 by

Innovation platforms are fast evolving to address the need for controlled innovation management in large enterprises. Originally developed for idea-management at the initial stage of the innovation process, they now provide comprehensive solution to complex managerial change and improvement initiatives, especially as innovation becomes more central to product development and company competitiveness.

Leading organizations require a coherent  approach to innovation and a practical solution to incorporate and monitor best practices. They seek an accessible location, one that will allow identifying new ideas based on authentic diverse sources, will ensure engagement and help process execution.
With advanced technological capabilities, software platforms can be a perfect solution for the organization to collaborate, drill new ideas, test them in real time and commit for their development.

There is a growing list of Innovation platform providers. Among them are — BrainBank, Brightidea, CogniStreamer, Hype Innovation, IdeaScale, Imaginatik, inno360, InnoCentive, Innovation Factory, InnovationCast, Kindling, Nosco, Qmarkets, and Spigit.

Innovation platforms are useful in creating Online Innovation Campaigns. With the right trigger for action, employees can engage easily by posting new ideas, voting, commenting, and building on each other’s ideas. Innovation platforms can be effective in creating an innovation focused atmosphere that builds into an innovative culture, in which everyone in the organization gets a voice and impact.

Effective innovation campaigns using advanced  technological platforms can help companies collaborate through all the innovation stages:

Idea generation: Teams can be challenged to identify innovative solutions that can promote the company’s strategy and market value, improve internal processes or contribute to the community. Developed systems can help assign participants to specific projects and encourage participation and collective behavior by automatic rewarding.

Selection: Reactions received by employees from different departments and roles (reviewers can be specifically chosen) can help evaluate new ideas according to programmed parameters with specific weights according to their strategic value.

Execution: Innovation campaigns can help create voluntary teams that will be designated to execute the most promising initiatives. Projects can also be monitored through the production cycle and credit submitters in case they provide real benefit.

* Case studies suggest that adding access to clients in specific campaigns can achieve great value in identifying new opportunities and for scaling up projects.

This article is part of the new TrendsSpotting Innovation Report: “Organizational Innovation” – Implementing Innovation in Organizations. Research Review and Case Studies

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TrendsSpotting New Next for 2016: Trend Prediction Slides

December 26th, 2015 by

TrendsSpotting Annual Prediction Report reviews upcoming trends and their implications.
Looking at 2015 – we aim at figuring out what will be new in consumer adoption for 2016. Covering trends in different consumer domains , we’ve learned that consumer needs can be quickly gathered to observed behaviors. People are looking for ways to display these behaviors. Technologies offer them such solutions. We are interested in finding out how such future developments may unfold next year.

Highlights:

  • 1st stage evolution of social robots: basic information (personal preferences, social data, general internet information) + basic functionalities (photo taking, alerts, reminders) + friendly imaged object with minimal moving abilities
  • Consumers will interact with internet based moving objects
  • Consumers will be looking for supervised professional service to analyze their health data
  • After 100 years of people driving cars, cars will be driving people.
  • Platforms offering companies sharing models for expensive products
  • Live broadcast media hype
  • New social norms will be adopted for groups to be effective and functional

TrendsSpotting New Next 2016: Trend Prediction Report from Dr. Taly Weiss

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TrendsSpotting Insight: Why QR Codes Fail and How They Can Still be Beneficial

February 28th, 2013 by

Four years ago, excited by the potential of QR codes, we have reviewed the very early initiatives that were made with QR codes.

Unfortunately, retailers and manufactures have failed to develop the use of QR codes. They understood the potential of direct interaction with consumers, but have chosen to lead them to totally wrong directions. Instead of trying to find out how consumers can benefit from QR codes – advertisers have overused it, made people waste their time and reach useless branded information that consumers simply don’t need.

No wonder that only few consumers tried to engage with QR codes (5-6%). What a waste. If was done right, that 5% early adopters could have lead to mass adoption, if only they had a good experience to share.

QR codes failed to succeed not because they are useless but because the industry have yet to discover areas that QR codes can be beneficial to consumers. Some companies experimented in shops while others ran outdoor ads. They completely neglected statistics proving otherwise: Most people actually use QR codes at home (See comScore 2011: primary location for QR codes on mobile – homes – 58%).

Why not make use of real time decisions? Consumers today are developing a variety of reminder tools to help them better manage their lives.

Yes, consumers want to make sure (or at least be reminded)  they buy products they use (and are satisfied with) that will soon run out.

By thinking about consumer needs, retailers and manufacturers can ensure brand loyalty and direct purchase using QR codes.

 

 

 

 

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Innovation Starts Within: Implementing Innovation in Organizations

February 19th, 2013 by

 The Innovation Engine

Innovation is known to fuel organizational growth, to drive future success, and is the engine that allows businesses to sustain their viability in a global economy. Both managers and researchers regard innovation as a ‘life-and-death matter for a firm’, in which the constant need of fighting for survival and the threat of competition encourage firms to innovate. Business and management research clearly indicate that organizations with innovative capacity can respond to environmental change quicker and can perform better than non-innovative organizations. Innovation cannot be external to the organization. For companies to succeed by innovation, its not enough to come up with great ideas that can change your market. The organization as a whole must be ready to absorb innovation.

Looking at case studies such as Apple and Google – we don’t see only good ideas and charismatic leaders – innovative companies are built into shared innovation mindset. Teams are working together on new solutions that were not tested before (that means more hard work and less replication). Managers involve the entire staff (down to the admin assistant), where you see a collective interest and care for the project. Lesson learning on successful projects is shared across departments and regions, side by side with insights on the projects that failed. At last, innovative ideas are surely essential but most of them tend to fail. A good selection criteria and ongoing managerial support are vital to ensure execution.

Working with large corporates that acknowledge the importance of innovation, we’ve learned that innovation, which is carried by visions, slogans, or professional titles, cannot achieve a real innovation change. In order to help organizations innovate TrendsSpotting has collected insights from primary research conducted on leading companies as well as start up companies, reviewed academic research together with practical business research and analyzed variety of case studies to come up with core parameters of best practices that are vital for the implementation of innovation in organizations. What’s needed to fuel the innovation engine? Working with companies on innovation implementation, we’ve learned that efforts should be invested in setting an innovation culture throughout the organization before investing efforts in innovative breakthrough ideas.

One of the major insights we’ve gained is that innovation can be effectively implemented across the organization once actual innovation projects are supported by Innovation methodologies. Optimal organizational innovation requires translating the business strategy into an overall organizational strategy, with proper mechanisms to ensure successful innovation performance when introducing new commercialized products to the market. For implementing innovation in the organization, leaders must take part and show active involvement. Individuals in all levels should be encouraged by top managers to think independently and creatively, and share their personal knowledge with others. To innovate, companies need to ensure a culture that supports new ideas and encourages new ways of “doing business” while putting efforts from the early start on optimal execution.

TrendsSpotting’s Innovation Implementation Methodology

To effectively implement innovation, TrendsSpotting has defined a set of core functions and processes that are vital for organizational innovation. Shared perceptions regarding innovation, human efforts engaged in innovation processes, tools and platform utilized, and structured innovation intervention processes are presented. Those are used to examine organizational innovation readiness.

Shared perceptions regarding innovation

  • Innovation as a strategic priority (benefits and opportunities)
  • Innovation serves for a competitive advantage
  • Innovation requirements are clearly defined
  • Initiating innovation and supporting it are defined as desired traits, which are acknowledged and rewarded

Human efforts invested in innovation:

  • Leadership commitment Vision: Well communicated, clear strategic vision and goals
  • Innovation dedicated leaders: innovation personas setting motivations and inspirations
  • Engaged employees that care to promote innovation processes and outcomes
  • Cross organization employee involvement (cross departments and roles)
  • Innovation agents and external partners are involved in innovation activities

Tools and platforms

  • Inspirational tools and creative settings
  • Innovation learning tools
  • Internal innovation communication channels / platforms
  • Innovation performance metrics (measurements and follow-ups for improvement)
  • Innovation incentives and rewards

Structuring the innovation intervention process

TrendsSpotting proposes a defined process for innovation implementation:

  • Identification of worthy innovation challenges (incremental and disruptive): portfolio balance, short and long term expectations, risk and success assessment.
  • Identification of innovation obstacles for specific projects
  • Managerial involvement and support
  • Wide collaboration teams (diversity of roles, departments, sectors, regions)
  • Supporting the process through the 4 stages: Ideation – selection – development and commercialization
  • Initiation of innovation projects (communication efforts are included)
  • Agile project management (execution planned and emphasized from the early start)
  • Re-examining innovation projects (updating risk and benefits)
  • Lesson learning
  • Communication of shared innovation experiences (successful projects as well as failed ones)

Here is a short presentation on TrendsSpotting’s Innovation Assessment Methodology and research tools, including TrendsSpotting’s Employee Innovation Survey.

Implementing Innovation in Organizations: TrendsSpotting’s Innovation
Assessment Research Tools from Taly Weiss

2016 Update! New TrendsSpotting Innovation Reports

TrendsSpotting has complied two Innovation Research Reports exploring theories, models and practical implementation of innovation in business settings and inside the organization.

1. Business Innovation Report: Innovation Strategy, Performance and Measurement
2. Organizational Innovation Report: Implementing innovation in organizations

 

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Money alone can not buy innovation: some take aways

August 17th, 2012 by

In the next weeks I plan to share few insights from our continuous research on business innovation (making it worthy to innovate) and organizational innovation (making innovation work inside the organization).

Western companies spent a sum of $550 billion on R&D in 2010 with little in return: the three industries that spent the most on R&D (computing/electronics, healthcare and automotive) struggled to develop a steady stream of breaking innovation and  bring compensating profits.

Now, lets take Apple as an example. Apple, the most innovative country in the world (Booz and Company, 2010, BCG innovation survey 2010) ranks low as 70th in the world in R&D spending. Apple spent $758 million on R&D during Q1 2012, only 1.6% from overall sales of $46.3 billion (compare that to the $2.3 billion Microsoft spent on research and development during the same quarter). Apple’s startup mentality (even with 60,000+ employees), their unique empowering culture where every employee is involved in the act of innovation, and their ability to focus only at few chosen grounds at a time, helps them spend less and get much more in return

  • Take way 1: Companies presume that spending much in R&D is necessary in order to produce something new. But following leading companies financial success, many of them are not able to maintain profits nor produce new profits. And that is even before we consider the near future, when we will see the outcomes of strengthening competition from companies in emerging markets, all highly focused on innovation.
  • Take away 2: Companies must invest more in better focusing and in creating a culture of innovation that can do more with less.

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From “Smart Mobile Accessories” to the “Internet of Things”: Research indications

May 18th, 2012 by

Trendsspotting’s recent innovation research on Mobile Accessories Trends as well as our ongoing consulting work with mobile companies, led me to generate insights on how the development of this market can enhance “Internet of Things” consumer behavior.

Here are my conclusions:

I. Technology perspective:

1. Mobile Objects:

In the last few months, smartphones have extended the traditional use of communication.

Incorporating hardware as well as apps improves the functionality of the device (upgraded photo/video/audio capabilities).

Smartphones today have become effective tools for monitoring (identifying locations of objects, keeping track of food preparation, health and fitness measurements, and even substitute expensive medical devices).

These devices can now control local systems (temperature, home entertainment devices and transportation) and in the near future will be integrated with multi systems to allow individuals to better manage their life.

2. Tech infrastructures are well matured, including: Search, Speak recognition, Location based data, Sensors, Augmented reality, Real time mechanisms, and Clouds.

 

II. Consumer perspective:

Consumers begin to adopt basic behaviors needed for the “Internet of Things”:

1. Location Info: 74% of smartphone owners get real-time location-based information on their phones (Pew Internet May 2012)

2. Mobile apps adoption is rising, becoming a functional part of consumers’ everyday life

  • Pew Internet August 2011: 32% of U.S. adults have downloaded an app to their cell phone.
  • Nielsen Q2 2011: Most popular apps are games (64%) ,weather apps(60%), followed by social networking (56%), maps/navigation/search(51%), music (44%) and news (39%).
  • Apps Purchase: Consumers are currently willing to pay for games apps (8%) and music apps (6%). ABI US Research May 2012: About two-thirds of app users have spent money on an application. Average spend was $14 per month.

3. Transportation:

  • Connected Cars – IMS Research September 2011: 60% of consumers in the US and Western Europe expressed a need for a connected system in their next car, and almost half of consumers would be willing to pay for a connected system in their next car.
  • Real time navigation: According to Berg Insight research: the number of mobile subscribers using a turn-by-turn navigation service or application on their handset grew 57 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching 44 million users worldwide.

4. Health

  • Willingness to share health information: Consumers are generally willing to share information from their personal health records as long as they have the power to select the conditions. (Source: Weitzman ER, Kaci L, Mandl KD. 2010.Sharing medical data for health research: the early personal health record experience. Journal of Medical Internet Research 12(2):e14).
  • Consumers are now interested in health apps: 29% of people who download apps to their cellphones or tablet computers have downloaded a health app (Pew Internet August 2011).

 

Embedded here is a presentation I’ve prepared for a recent conference, introducing the ANA model for future innovations.

Many practical ideas can be generated by using this model.

 

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