Innovation strategies: Creating advantage

Staying ahead in the marketplace with effective innovation strategies

Successful companies understand that in order to stay in the game and achieve profitability they need to constantly innovate. The development of an effective innovation strategy provide organizations with a framework to successfully create innovative products and services that surprise and delight customers and exceed market expectations.

Lack of innovation increases customer dissatisfaction and defections, as customers will give their business to those organizations that have the most up-to-date products and services.

Advances in technology and especially the Internet have provided substantial strategic opportunities for organizations to use innovation to gain competitive advantage. According to the article, Innovation Strategies for Creating Competitive Advantage, “Innovation has become the major differentiator in the competitive race and innovative companies have learned to sustain themselves over long periods of time.”

Understanding the frameworks that underlie innovation strategies

There are various frameworks that guide the formulation and implementation of an effective innovation strategy. Some excellent examples are provided by some of the most successful organizations that are adept in establishing strategies that align with their customer needs and corporate goals. The article Innovation Strategies for Creating Competitive Advantage explores how the various innovation strategies of P&G, Apple, Nokia, Google and Bayer contributed to the creation of products and services and helped them consistently gain competitive advantage and win in the different marketplaces.

Here are some of these strategies:

• • Cycle time reduction: Getting products to market faster than the competition is of critical importance for achieving market share and profitability. Organizations can successfully reduce the time from concept to market through what this article calls “an overlapping arrangement known as cycle time reduction.” Examples include Boeing, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota.
  • Co-creation: This article also explains that “Co-creation is a mode of innovation in which value is created by jointly working with the consumer and using customer insights to generate greater satisfaction.” The best known examples are 3M, Gillette and Nivea.
  • Competitive Leadership: The goal of this innovation strategy is “dominating competitors by outwitting, outmanoeuvring, and outperforming them through innovation and often involves competitive analysis, competitive benchmarking.” Examples include Adobe, Canon, and P&G.
  • Partnering: Authors of this article describes corporate partnering as an innovation strategy that “helps firms synergize complementary capabilities.” An example of successful partnering is Disney that partnered with Pixar to produce winning blockbuster animation movies.

OneDesk facilitates your innovation strategies

Regardless of the innovation strategy you chose, OneDesk can help you manage every stage of it. OneDesk addresses innovation management, and helps put your innovation strategy in motion. OneDesk gives you the tools that allow your customers, employees and partners to participate in the ideation process, and make it easy for your organization to take immediate action by linking your process to requirements and project tasks. With OneDesk you will accelerate your product’s time-to-market by discovering early your customers’ needs, and by using an integrated suite of tools to go quickly from concept to implementation.

To find out more about how OneDesk can help bring your innovation strategies to life click here.