Sharath Srinivasamurthy is a research director for IDC India’s Enterprise Solutions & ICT Practices team. Based in Bangalore, Sharath has a dual role in which he manages the software and services domain group guiding the team at country-level research tracker programs, and at the same time he also leads the future enterprise practices for India enabling enterprises to identify how they can use technology for their business outcomes.
Innovation is the key to gaining competitive advantage in today’s time. Given the competitiveness in today’s business environment, organizations that constantly innovate and evolve as per market dynamics will elevate and secure leadership in their respective industries. Many businesses are reluctant to change and will continue to operate in the same obsolete way they have in the past. To remain competitive, they work harder, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and adhere to the best practices, which however, is insufficient. Rather than becoming entrenched in their current mode of operation, organisations must embrace new skills to evolve and implement their strategy.
However, the most effective way to gain a competitive edge and stay ahead of the peers is to innovate by utilising the best in class technology and talent of your employees. Transform your most valuable assets into opportunistic entrepreneurs who seek out new opportunities and strive to improve businesses. Innovation needs to be driven top down and should gradually percolate to all levels, departments and functions encompassing products, services, strategy, operations and structure in an organization
Three key tenets of an innovative organizations are:
- Enterprise Agility is the key
An organization’s ability to respond to rapidly changing market conditions and quickly adjust to its business environment as per the feedback from direct stakeholders (such as customers) and changes in market demand is dependent on the agility. It requires an organisation to assess the interests of its stakeholders and end-users and make appropriate changes based on that feedback. While not every product or idea that a company develops will be well received, proactiveness and the ability to analyse key metrics to make strategic decisions are essential aspects of it.
For instance, an agile enterprise is not centred on software delivery, as the Agile Manifesto suggests. Rather, an Agile Enterprise is concerned with improving customer centricity, employee engagement, operations, and financial performance. Essentially, it focuses on the fulfilment of the objectives and hence, agility is inextricably tied to an organization’s key performance measures.
For any company to develop a successful technology and innovation management strategy, they should be prepared to strive as modifications and adjustments to products and processes are fraught with risk and uncertainty, hence, agility is required. In case a company wants to create value and prosper in a changing environment, technology and innovation management must strike a balance between short-term efficiency and long-term market effectiveness. Organisations who are willing to face the challenges of innovation and dynamic competition, will require strong dynamic skills.
- Cloud Native- Leveraging the potential of Cloud native development-
Today, Cloud is allowing businesses to connect, link people, data, and processes in modern ways to seize opportunities provided by advanced technologies. Business leaders are integrating their business and IT to provide a new value for customers to flourish in a digital-first environment.
Several big MNCs across the globe have already expedited their cloud migrations as part of their digital transformations, and as a result, many are benefiting from considerable new capabilities and reaping financial benefits. However, many also witnessed increased expenses due to cloud transition, while new, unforeseen business limitations develop. Cloud-native is a new approach to structuring technology architecture and service delivery to drive innovation and increase organisational efficiency. The advantages of a cloud native strategy for organisations are obvious, and it is prime for a successful digital transformation. Today, leveraging cloud capabilities and building applications with cloud native features is an essential element for any software company.
Adopting cloud-native development will help organisations negotiate the shift to being predominantly software producers. Platform-as-a-service implementation is a critical component of an enterprise’s shift to cloud-native development since it offers developers an integrated platform of infrastructure and software-related solutions to construct digital solutions. Furthermore, many tools and services inside a platform as a service are interoperable by default, allowing developers to choose programming languages, frameworks, plug-ins, DevOps, and application life-cycle management tools. Platform-as-a-service expedites and streamlines the selection of development tools by providing developers with pre-selected development stacks and infrastructure options.
- Customer centricity- Focusing on Consumer demand
The ever-increasing pace of business, on-going technological breakthroughs, and unexpected shifts and instabilities in market segments generate an intense need to innovate ahead of constantly changing consumer wants and desires. If we want to create products that people will enjoy, we must keep our customers at the forefront of our innovation efforts. Most firms’ cultures are still product-focused or sales-driven, or customer centricity is emphasized mainly in particular activities such as marketing. To successfully adopt a customer-centric strategy and operational model, businesses must have an aligned culture and business leaders who intentionally nurture the appropriate attitude and values in their workers.
Technological innovations are playing an increasingly essential role in the success of the world’s top industrial economies.