Fuelling Innovative Thinking

In the context of a knowledge based economy everything that is provided is a commodity, product or service. The notion of a consumer society is real in all aspects of life. More and more it is observed that customers in the private sector and citizens in the public sector are wanting their needs to be replenished on a regular basis with an expectation of receiving high standards of quality defined by speed, reliability and empathy but also the expectation includes innovative thinking as a feature that demonstrates that the providers concerned are customer orientated. With this in mind the traditional approaches to creating differentiations and superior competitiveness are no longer sufficient. There are more similarities in every aspect of providing services and products than has been the case previously. Differentiation will therefore have to be sought by building innovative thinking at the front end of an organisations value chain. This means that customer centric strategies would have to be developed and thus accepting the fact that commoditisation is real and unless there is a robust engine within the organisations concerned for driving innovative thinking on a continuous basis then the struggle will start. The power of innovative thinking is therefore no longer reliant on the following: 1. A narrow minded view of value as quantified by tangible outputs in the form of products and services. 2. A management approach to innovation that is project based and looks at singular ways of creating a competitive impact. 3. A bolt on approach to driving innovation within the organisation by looking at enhancing and nudging existing projects under the label of new innovations. 4. A push mechanism to driving innovation by being distant and remote from customers and not including their direct input. 5. A short life cycle for managing innovation projects without the sustainability element of building long lasting relationships. 6. A narrow definition of innovation that does not include the experiential element of consumption vis vie the customer. 7. A closed system for driving innovation for competitiveness. The modern view of innovative thinking is that value is not necessarily economic and financial but could also be experiential and even spiritual. In the era of customisation and even customerisation using the notion of 'for me only' customers will be the best judges for assessing the impact of an innovation received on their needs and expectations. It is likely that more and more innovative thinking efforts will be through putting the customer in the driving seat and engaging them positively in defining their needs and empowering them to manipulate the value creation activities for the purpose of fulfilling their own specific needs. This report is a useful resource for explaining the modern approach to driving innovative thinking. It defines innovation in a modern context as an open system but also tackles the critical areas of customer engagement and empowerment. The report also includes various useful concepts and guidelines for driving innovative thinking successfully.