Stronger Innovation Management Tools and Processes

Many organizations say they support innovation yet may not fully take the time to invest in innovation management tools and processes to turn their best ideas into world class products.  The ideas and intellectual property are at the heart of the company’s success. As an organization grows, spotting and nurturing innovative ideas within the organization becomes more difficult. The very best ideas may never make it to market without a focus and the right tools to support sustained innovation.

 

This blog provides tips and examples to accelerate innovation in your organization and how using innovation management tools such as the AQX® Innovation Management™ can help.

Ensure Your Company’s Innovation is Aligned with Strategic Business Initiatives

Companies often do not have a formal innovation management process or have many processes for different product lines. These situations can lead to the innovation happening in silos throughout the company without an integrated strategy to focus on new products and technologies most strategically important to the business overall.

 

For a more holistic approach to innovation, senior management needs to understand the complete picture at an early stage, determine an idea’s applicability with current company strategy, and allocate resources accordingly. This, in turn, will help support inventors, encourage collaboration, and accelerate the innovation lifecycle without sacrificing time or quality.

 

Software such as AQX Innovation Management supports strategic alignment by keeping all innovation documents and communication on a single platform. The software includes reports on key performance indicators to ensure that the innovation funnel is in alignment with corporate strategy.  Senior managers can create custom dashboards to visualize the innovation pipeline with dynamic charts, graphs, and tables that provide a variety of ways to slice and dice data.

Create a Process for Idea Submissions and Collaborative Reviews

It’s important to have a review and decision-making workspace that allow teams of reviewers to easily access supporting documents and idea submission information. Having critical ideation milestones data available in a dashboard view supports team members with tracking throughout the innovation lifecycle. AQX Innovation Management provides an end-to-end solution using a configurable review and rating process to help move the best idea submissions forward.

 

Fig. 1 Collaboration Workspace in AQX Innovation Management

 

Capture Ideas and Feedback from Different Parts of the Company

Capturing ideas from teams across the organization and ensuring there is a cross-pollination of ideas throughout the organization is critical to accelerating innovation. For example, suppose a seed company markets to farmers as well as residential lawn and garden consumers. An inventor in the agricultural group finds a way to help seeds resist drought. If the group goes straight to legal and files a patent application, the company might miss out on the broader applicability of an innovation that might also work in lawns and garden.

 

If the same company had received strategic input from management and other departments early in the process, the resulting patent application and eventual product sales could cover a broader swath of the business.

 

It can be difficult for stakeholders across departments and geographic locations to be on the same wavelength, resulting in inefficiencies and missed opportunities. With AQX Innovation Management you can easily set up collaborative areas to obtain input across various departments and geographies. Additionally, you can create custom workflows to make sure new ideas go through a series of checks and balances before approval.  Users can also submit ideas and photos through the mobile app for on-the-go collaboration.

Provide Dedicated Virtual Workspaces for Optimal Collaboration

These days, R&D teams are inundated with virtual collaboration apps that promise productivity but deliver distraction. Organizations need workspaces that work for everyone and connect an entire organization whether they are working remotely, in an office, or different regions of the world.

 

Creating branded portals for different product teams and even outside partners can help build team unity and enthusiasm. AQX Innovation Management provides a fully dedicated workspace for ideation and collaboration and can be personalized with your brand. This can drive strategic innovation by posting challenges, areas of interest, and goals. The workspace connects with other tools such as project tracking and data analysis. Users can also access a message board for ad-hoc communication.

 

Fig. 2 Branded Portal in AQX Innovation Management

 

Collaboration ideally, should not be limited to just your internal stakeholders. A virtual workspace can improve collaboration with suppliers and external partners. This gets them involved in the testing and feedback loop and helps create a culture of innovation that extends beyond the organization.

Leverage Analytics to Propel Your Best Ideas Forward

When inventors, R&D, legal, and other stakeholders bring their perspectives to the table early in the process, it sparks new and broader ideas. It’s not enough to invite them into the conversation. Stakeholders need a streamlined process combined with easy-to-use analytical tools. All of this can help organizations discover new uses for an innovation that the inventor or R&D didn’t initially have in mind, ultimately creating more opportunities for commercialization.

 

Fig. 3 Idea Dashboard using HyperView

 

Forward-thinking organizations embrace innovation management tools and processes that will support sustained innovation. Through AQX Innovation Management, organizations can capture ideas, identify gaps, problem solve, and ensure alignment between the innovation and the strategic vision of the company. The platform also helps organizations get to market faster through capabilities that enable improved collaboration and enhanced decision-making processes to accelerate the best ideas forward.

 

AQX Innovation Management is part of the AQX IP management platform allowing new approved inventions and technologies to move seamlessly into the prep and prosecution process for patent and brand protection.