Innovation and Experimentation essential for Digital Transformation
A vital ingredient of any Digital Transformation strategy is Innovation and experimentation. Both will help you move closer to the digitization of processes, creation of products and services and enhanced customer experiences. According to the State of Digital Transformation research, innovation is ranked as one of the top five areas of focus for companies which are embarked on a journey to transform.
Using emerging and open source technologies has opened new frontiers not only for the startups but also for well-established large enterprises in trying and experimenting these technologies for their business scenarios. Emerging technologies such as Cloud, Cybersecurity, Machine Learning (ML)/Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT are going to lead the way in technology investments for the enterprises in 2019 according to the report. IDC forecasts that enterprise AI solutions and applications will deliver over $52B in global market revenue by 2021, attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to 46.2% through 2021.
Cloud Computing is and will continue to play a key role as an enabler and a catalyst for innovation and experimentation. Numerous Cloud services from multiple providers are helping companies to run experiments, using various emerging technologies, to try and test new business transformation proof of concept ideas before making huge investment on scaling these ideas into production systems. One of the key advantages of Cloud computing is getting your MVP (Minimal Viable Product) out in the market quickly and become a trailblazer for your competition.
Regardless of what technology you are using to innovate and experiment, it is critical to keep the customer as the center of focus. It all starts with creating a minimal viable product, taking to the customers for feedback, coming back and improving the product/service/experience with that feedback and then taking it back again to the customers. Repeat this cycle multiple times till you see huge customer adoption and positive feedback. This iterative process will lead to customer approved products, services and experiences which your customers will love and will continue to use along with becoming an advocate of your product/service and organization.
As you get ready to socialize innovation and experimentation in your organization, it helps to create a framework with these key elements:
All successful experiments should be carefully evaluated for possible business model changes to see if they are improving customer experience, increasing the customer-base or creating revenue generation opportunities.
As your teams and individuals from different units in your organization start to innovate and experiment on business and customer scenarios, here are some guiding principles to follow for achieving successful experimental initiatives:
Before you start an innovation or experimental project make sure that you have clearly identified a business or a customer problem you are trying to solve. Don’t just innovate or start an experiment just for the sake of doing one or just because everyone else is doing it. Basically, don’t put the horse before the cart where you are doing an experiment for the sake of experiment and not really filling a business void or solving a problem. A business problem can be a product, service, or customer/partner experience creation or improvement.
