The social web impacts product Innovation
Interesting results on the impact of social media on product innovation were revealed in a recent study conducted by the consulting firm Kalypso. The biggest impact reported by 20% of organizations using social media as part of their product strategy is faster product adoption. In addition 16% reported faster time to market and 15% lower product development cost as the biggest impact. In looking at this graph we can see that the organizations using social media in their product innovation process are gaining in two critical factors: time and costs.
Even though the results are definitive many organizations are still struggling to integrate social media into the product innovation process.
Leveraging the social web: Challenges in implementation
Joseph Conlin, on BusinessWriting.com discusses some of the challenges that Kalypso highlighted in a recent press release:
“….leveraging social media for product innovation is a new concept for most companies. Many companies are struggling to find effective ways to harness the social web and therefore effectively utilize social technologies to enhance product innovation.” Kalypso believes organizations are struggling because:
• 46 percent feel they are not sure which strategies or methods are most effective
• 23 percent say social media management is cumbersome and time-consuming
• 33 percent reported that they have not yet implemented a formal strategy to include social media into the product innovation process.
Education is the key to successful integration of the social web
These results indicate that in order to benefit from the positive impact of social media as reported by the Kalypso studies, organizations need better education on which strategies are more effective and on how to streamline the social media management process. Providers of social business technologies, tools and applications must provide the requisite education and training on how to properly use the social web to create and deliver profitable products to the marketplace faster and at lowered costs.