Digital innovation has the potential to transform not only individual organisations but entire industries and markets. The way we think about our purchasing decisions, and the things we look for when we do business, have been permanently changed by innovative companies that use innovative strategies to radically improve their services and products.
What’s more, investing in digital transformation can positively impact every area of your business from improving processes, increasing efficiency to identifying and implementing cost savings.
Explore our list of top digital innovations, and think of the ways that you can apply them to your business.
Paper to data solutions
The NHS is one of the most paperwork-intensive organisations in the world. When people’s health is at stake, proper record keeping and data analysis could mean the difference between life and death. And, since it’s been around since 1948, it has a lot of paper records. So many, in fact, that it employs 23 separate partner organisations to keep track of it all.
Using paper-to-data solutions to transfer all this physical data into digital storage is a difficult process. However, the benefits are astronomical, not just in terms of cost and time saved in managing physical data, but also the opportunities that digital data can bring. Today, the NHS is embarking on its mission to use AI to “transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases”.
How could digitised record keeping transform your organisation? Could you use AI to predict market gaps or customer service needs?
Digitised distribution
Platforms like Amazon have totally changed the way commerce happens across the globe. It made high-street shops virtually redundant overnight and enabled thousands of small businesses to reach new customers around the globe. However, the benefits of digitised distribution aren’t only limited to customer-facing products and services. Any asset can be made more available using digital technology, from marketing tools to infrastructure, both within your business and without.
For example, one of 2018’s most innovative companies, ServiceNow, built its business model around the digitisation of client IT infrastructure and licensing. What would your business look like if you could enable global access to your business’ most crucial assets? Could you find a way to distribute team skills and experience? What about ideas and innovation?
API service engineering
APIs are the transformative technology that has been quietly changing the face of the digital world. Whilst everyone has been raving about blockchain and AI, the world of application program interfaces has been working under the radar to enable all sorts of programmes to communicate with each other and exchange data. Platforms like IFTTT and Zapier are the keys to tying these platforms together, giving you the chance to make your platforms interact.
Want to Tweet your friend every time you receive an email? How about create a spreadsheet record of your Skype calls? IFTTT can help you do that by connecting the APIs of each of these platforms together. However, things get even more interesting when you start adding internet of things technologies into the mix. The only limit to what you can achieve with these technologies is your own imagination.
Idea and innovation management software
The democratisation of innovation is set to revolutionise industries globally. Hierarchical, geographic and functional boundaries have traditionally confined idea generation and implementation to a select group of individuals within an organisation.
Idea and innovation management platforms, like Idea Drop, enable organisations to transcend these boundaries. By crowdsourcing ideas from across an organisation, businesses can continually find new ways to drive change, solve problems, and deliver long-term value. While senior leadership may make the final call on critical decisions, team members at every level, and on the front lines of your business, have great ideas and insights that can lead to disruptive innovations and practical solutions.
The proximity of lower level employees to the daily functions of a business gives them a unique perspective compared to senior management. By reliably capturing and developing ideas from internal and external stakeholders, you tap into the knowledge, creativity and problem solving skills of myriad people rather than merely those at the top.
To learn how Idea Drop can help you embed digital innovation strategy within your business, drop us a line in the chat box below. We’d love to talk to you about making your organisation more effective.
