In a recent issue of Industrial Management & Data Systems, Silvia Ayuso affirms the following regarding using external sources such as the customer to fuel active innovation: “captured stakeholder information allow firms to create intangible resources that are difficult to imitate since no other firm can establish the same relations with the same stakeholders and create the same knowledge.”
To put it plainly, your external stakeholders are some of your top sources of information– by listening to them, you allow your product/service to remain diverse to whichever market you’ve chosen and command an active source of need. Chances are, if your current external stakeholders need a feature, then parallel clientele will have very similar needs. By communicating with your external stakeholders, you can learn to stay abreast not only of the shifts within their interests, but also the shifts within the interests of like-minded prospects.
Keep External Stakeholders Onboard
As Ayuso also affirms with the above in mind, “The main challenge is to find flexible mechanisms to connect an active stakeholder dialogue with successful innovation strategies”. The endgame to all of this client engagement is sustainable development. If you don’t have some sort of mechanism to keep your external stakeholders’ interests and needs in check with those of your internal stakeholders as well as the breadth of your current knowlege base, there is a danger that presents itself. That danger is the over-encompassing of one element to the rest, leading to a misuse of resources and a misuse of organization funds. As important as one external stakeholder is to your company, if you only focus on one specific client’s needs, you’ll lose sight of the needs of the rest of your client base as well as the needs of your internal management.
Avoid The Eclipse of External Stakeholder Engagement
With OneDesk, you can invite external stakeholders to watch the process and see how their feedback is fueling ideation and innovation management in real-time. Furthermore, you don’t need to worry about one client’s needs over-encompassing those of the rest of your client-base and organization, as you can receive notifications in real-time, to keep your administration on track and focused on all the elements of your innovation process.