Innovation Consulting
According to the University of Cambridge, “There’s always a tension between efficiency and innovation within almost all large commercial organizations”.
We always talk about Innovations, but less about Innovation Consultants and their importance in an organization. This blog will help you learn how innovation consulting help in creating an innovative business environment. And how Innovation Consultants help to guide through the process of continuous learning and experimentation to create Innovation.
Despite enormous investment in time, human resources, and money by management, being innovative remains a hurdle for the growth of many companies. Usually, the managers and leaders are so busy with their daily task that providing fresh or innovative idea above their duties become challenging. In such cases, businesses look to hire creative and innovative problem-solvers outside the organization. They are individuals or a company offering their experiences and expertise to various organizations.
What is innovation consulting?
Before we start What is innovation consulting, let's learn about innovation.
Innovation is the process of creating new ideas, products, processes, or services that add value to society. It can be defined as a tool for economic growth and competitiveness, that allows organizations to offer products and services with a competitive advantage to their customers.
Innovation Consulting is the process of discovering new methods of creating value innovation for both customers & businesses in a creative manner.
KPMG one of the biggest innovation consulting firms and one of the Big Four, use the 6P approach to innovation.
Purpose – Defining the purpose of the brand and assignment
Persona – Empathic understanding of the key stakeholders and insight generation
Promise – Setting goals that are desirable, feasible, and viable
Possibility – ideation and co-creation of approach
Personalization – the differentiated experience/ritual which makes it special to the brand and customer
Prototyping/testing/feedback/improvements and roll out.
Innovation consulting is the process where the experts discover new methods of creating value for customers and growth opportunities for companies. They help you to expertise in the field of innovation. Innovation Consulting takes an organization towards the creation and implements creative strategies to achieve business objectives.
What is an innovation consultant?
Innovation Consultants are experts from different field who helps an organization in creating and implementing innovative strategies to support business objectives.
Innovation consultants as leaders can help an organization gain a lot from their past experience with other companies, industries, and sectors which can be a great way to find new initiatives and talents within your company.
Innovation consulting consists of a team of strategists and consultants who are fully committed to driving returns on innovation. These experts are also known as Innovation consultants. Innovation Consulting can bring a different experience and perspective on the business and the innovation space.
Companies need innovative strategies but are struggling to create and implement them on their own. According to the McKinsey Global Innovation Survey, 86% of executives agree innovation is the key to growth strategy. To increase your chances to adopt these changes and discover new opportunities the key to growth is innovation consulting.
What does an innovation consultant do?
From planning and making strategies to facilitating a new partnership an innovation consultant can perform different tasks depending on the requirements of the client depending on the nature of the industry.
Developing new growth strategies: Growth strategies define a company's purpose, help in finding its space in the market, identify its potential customers and develop strategies to make its products more competitive. An innovation consultant helps the client to map out the growth strategies that can bring your client’s visions to life.
Providing fresh POV: By developing new research approaches and running ideation sessions an innovation consultant helps in providing a new point of view to the organization. As an expert in innovation strategy, you can provide insight to the teams which may not be seen because they are too busy with their daily tasks and could not see what improvements could be made.
Identify and fix broken processes: Businesses hire outside experts to help them to identify and improve the processes that lead to delay an enterprise's success. Innovation consultants develop solutions to improve broken techniques and processes, encouraging growth. They also create and help in implementing completely new processes when required that can be used in long term.
Reinforce and develop a team: All efforts by the organization and the consultants fails if the team is not strong enough to be focused on innovation. Hiring and training the team, changing management structures, and developing a company culture of innovation are other tasks of innovation consultants.
Reveal opportunities for diversification or new ideas: An innovation consultant provides insight that helps to reveal opportunities that may help to build a new business model or innovative product for the organization. To make that innovation a success, finding new trends or inspiration in the industry and measuring the impact of the solution discovered is also the primary goal of an innovation consultant.
Prototypes and testing: In the case of a new product the innovation consultants insure the delivery of the innovation. From the idea generation phase to the prototyping phase, they support the team and ensure that the product is ready to go to market. They also help in testing the product with customers and scale production once it launches.
What are the three types of business model innovation?
Innovation consulting provides advice and time-to-time direction to businesses and organizations for growth and diversification through innovation. They help organizations to implement new growth and business strategies. This can be done through business model innovation, product innovation, and process innovation.
Business Model Innovation
According to Greg Collier, an academic specialist in Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the director of international programs for the Center for Entrepreneurship Education, “Amazon is amazing at new business model development, as they look at themselves from a customer-defined perspective.”
A business model is a strategy that plans how a business or organization will deliver value to its customers.
Business model innovation is the process of enhancing advantage and value creation by making fundamental changes to an organization’s value proposition to its customers and also to the undergoing operating model.
The video game industry has gone through numerous business model innovations in recent years, with companies like Atari taking advantage of the demand by selling units directly to the customer. Game developers have also had to adapt their business models to meet the evolving demands of customers, such as being able to play their games right on their smartphones. Companies must consider how their products are being delivered, as competitors can easily change how they price.
What are business model innovation examples?
Blockbuster vs. Netflix
When Netflix launched in 1997, Blockbuster was the undisputed champion of the video rental industry.
In 2000, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings approached Blockbuster's then-CEO, John Antioco, with a merger proposal, but the deal never materialized.
In 1999, Netflix received backing from Groupe Arnault, giving them a $30 million cash injection. In 2004, Blockbuster launched a Netflix-like online DVD rental platform, and by 2006, subscribers had grown to 2 million.
It took seven years for Blockbuster to start its service, but Netflix had a competitive advantage and its sights set on launching a streaming service, forcing Blockbuster to play a game of catch-up.
In 2007, Antioco left Blockbuster, late fees were reinstated, and Blockbuster's online efforts were put on the back burner.
In 2008, Netflix signed a deal with Starz to stream around 1,000 blockbuster movies and shows on its service. In 2010, Netflix signed deals with names like Sony, Paramount, Lionsgate, and
Disney to help them grab a 20% market share of North American viewing traffic. On July 1st of the same year, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy.
Product innovation:
The process of developing a new product or improving an existing one to creatively satisfy customers' wants and solve their problems is known as product innovation.
PerfectFill – KOHLER is a smart bathing system that integrates a smart drain that makes the bath experience fully automated, a digital/app controller, and bath filler that fill the tub at the ideal temperature and level via voice control or app is one of the examples of new innovative products in 2022.
As per Harvard Business School innovation that exists can be classified as:
Maintaining innovation: This involves a company constantly targeting its top clients (the people willing to pay the most) for the highest-quality items.
Disruptive innovation: This is used by companies with lesser resources to challenge well-established businesses which can be further classified as
Low-end disruption & Newmarket description. Low-end disruption occurs when a new business enters the market at the bottom and offers a "good enough" product with a low-profit business strategy.
On the other side when a new firm enters an existing market and rises upscale, it disrupts it by creating a new sector, gradually making the old items obsolete it is known as the new market description.
Process Innovation
Process innovation is a combination of facilities, skills, and technologies used to produce, deliver, and support a product or service. It can include changes in equipment and technology, tools, techniques, software solutions, and methods used for accounting and customer service.
Process innovation is the lowest-risk type of innovation, as it reduces costs and increases revenue more often than product innovation.
One of the most famous examples of process innovation is Henry Ford’s invention of the world’s first moving assembly line.
Conclusion
Innovation consultants provide better insights into an organization. They build a team by improving or developing internal processes that generate additional innovation. They through their expertise and experience provide solutions to all the problems within the organization and the problems faced because of external challenges.
We at Grokalp Ltd. have a team of Innovation consultants with 17+ years of corporate experience in various industries who can provide you with both business model innovation and product innovation.
The main objective of Grokalp ltd as an innovation consulting firm is to help a company articulate and engage in an innovation journey based on a clear business strategy while fostering an ecosystem that is innovative within the organization.
FAQ
1. What are the four major innovation tasks?
Ans. In order to develop an innovative culture an innovation consultant helps an organization in collaboration, ideation, implementation, and value creation for customers as the four major innovation tasks.
2. Why innovation consulting is important?
Ans. Innovation consulting creates substantial value for your business by solving critical issues, creating value for the customer, maximizing growth, and improving the overall performance of the business.
3. What is innovation in consulting?
Ans. Innovation in consulting is the process of discovering new methods of creating value for customers and growth opportunities for companies. This is the task of an innovation consultant hired by an organization.