INNOVERSE: corporate innovation for your company

Today’s business environment is highly competitive, and tostay ahead of the curve, companies need to constantly innovate to keep their businesses relevant and profitable. However, large corporations often struggle to innovate at a pace similar to startups. Fromthis fact, Ideafoster creates INNOVERSE.

Differences in the innovation process: startups vs large companies

At Ideafoster we use two key indicators to understand the differences in the innovation process are TTT and TTP.

The first, the TTT, measures the time it would take for a company to file for bankruptcy if it stopped innovating altogether.  Startups could disappear in just 1 or 2 months without innovating, while large corporations would take between 10 and 20 years to achieve the same result. Something that does not seem daunting.

However, what makes the difference is the second indicator. The TTP measures the time it takes to prototype and validate an idea in the market. For startups, this process can take only 1 or 2 weeks, butfor corporations, it can take 1-2 years. Of course, the combination of TTT and TTP leads to enormous resistance from large companies to innovation. The consequence of this resistance is that these large companies lose business and growth opportunities.

Given this scenario, at IDEAFOSTER we have created INNOVERSE, a business innovation product that aims to reduce the TTP of large companies through rapid innovation and thus achieve areal and disruptive transformation within the organization.

Business Innovation Challenges: Ideafoster’s Innoverse

The failure of business innovation initiatives is high, with a failure rate of 72% each year. In addition, 80% of business modelsare at risk of becoming obsolete due to several reasons: lack of action on market signals, lack of adequate budget allocation, organizational barriers, lack of adequate strategy or vision, and lack of leadership and alignment.

The main enabler of innovation is the ability to test, learn and iterate quickly. Ideafoster’s solution is INNOVERSE, a multi-stage business innovation product to connect the skills and talents of the organization’s employees with the vision and strategic objectives of executive management.

INNOVERSE in three phases

First phase: capturing ideas

This is the initial launch of a campaign to capture ideas from employees through a digital platform. Then, a specific innovation challenge is selected and the submitted ideas are received and voted on.

Second phase: development

The second phase involves working closely with the idea owners (intrapreneurs) and their teams to delve deeper into the chosen challenge and idea. In this phase, Ideafoster’s proven innovation techniques and models are used.

Third phase, decision-making

The third phase is the Decision Summit, a four-hour event in which intrapreneurs present their business ideas to a panel of company leaders to secure investment. From there, Ideafoster can extendits services to continue developing the project with the selected intrapreneurs, providing advice in various areas such as finance, marketing, and human resources.

Why INNOVERSE

Hiring INNOVERSE is a key strategy for companieslooking to transform and stay competitive in today’s market. We have already explained that INNOVERSE is a business innovation product  that seeks to reduce the TTP of companies through rapid and disruptive innovation. This translates into a greater ability of the company to execute incremental and disruptive innovations and discover the perfect combination between the product and the market in a short period of time.

(01) Disruptive incremental innovation

A disruptive incremental innovation is the continuous and gradual improvement of an existing product or service that, in the long term, can have a disruptive impact on the market. This innovation tipinvolves making small improvements to an existing product or service, rather than creating something entirely new from scratch. These improvements can be made in terms of functionality, efficiency, design, quality, or cost, among other aspects.

Unlike a radical disruptive innovation, which fundamentally changes the way something is done, a disruptive incremental innovation does not radically change the way the product or service works. It is limited, if one can speakof limitation, to make it sufficiently different to generate a significant impact on the market.

Examples of disruptive incremental innovation

An example of a simple disruptive incremental innovation in finance is the addition of a mobile payment feature to an existing mobile banking app. Although this function is not a radically new innovation, it can have a disruptive impact on the financial services market, due to its ability tochange the way customers conduct financial transactions.

On the other hand, in the field of health we could talk about telemedicine. It consists of providing a health care service remotely using informationand communication technologies. In this case, incremental innovation would consist of improving the quality of internet connections, developing teleconferencing tools and implementing electronic medical record management systems.

(02) The power of crowdsourcing

One of the most significant benefits INNOVERSE offers is the ability to harness the power of crowdsourcing to solve strategic challenges. This means that the company can involve its own workforce in identifyingopportunities and generating innovative ideas, thus fostering an entrepreneurial business culture.

Crowdsourcing, also known as open collaboration, is a way to get ideas, solutions, and opinions from a large and diverse group of people. In the context of business innovation, it is used to harness the collective wisdom and creativity of employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

As for how crowdsourcing helps companies innovate and why INNOVERSE incorporates this strategy, it has several key benefits:

• Access to a wide range of knowledge and skills: Crowdsourcing allows companies to access a wide variety of knowledge, skills and experiences that are not available within the organization itself. This can help unlock new ideas and solutions.
• Greater diversity of thought: It can also help companies gain different perspectives and approaches to a problem or challenge, which can lead to more innovative and creative solutions.
• Greater employee engagement and involvement: Involving employees in the innovation process through crowdsourcing tends to improve their engagement with the company.
• Cost reduction: Crowdsourcing is a more cost-effective way to get ideas and solutions than hiringconsultants or building an internal innovation team.
• Acceleration of the innovation process allows companies to get ideas and solutions faster than would be possible through traditional internal innovation processes.

(03) use of startups’ own strategies that INNOVERSE incorporates into its process.

In addition, INNOVERSE helps companies turn ideas into business solutions by using strategies like those used by startups. This allowscompanies to accelerate the go-to-market process, reducing the cost and time normally spent on innovation. Some of those strategies that large corporations can adopt thanks to INNOVERSE are the following:

Focus on the MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Instead of trying to create an entire product all at once, startups focus on creating an MVP that has the essential features to solve the customer’s problem. This allows them to validate their idea and get early feedback from the user without investing too much time and money. When large companies act in this way within the framework of INNOVERSE, they can learn and get early feedback from the user to adapt their productbefore launching it on the market.

Develop iteratively.

Startups also tend to develop their products iteratively, meaning they make constant improvements as they receive feedback from users. This allows them to quickly adapt to the needs of the market.

For example, suppose a company is developing an online ticketing app for sporting events. Instead of trying to create a full version of the application from thebeginning, iterative development would consist of several steps:

• Create an MVP that has the essential features to allow the purchase of tickets.

• Test the MVP with a group of users and get feedback on their experience.

• Make improvements to the application and create a second version.

• This second version is also tested, and additional feedback is obtained.

• The process is repeated until a satisfactory final versionof the application is reached.

Ideafoster, through INNOVERSE, proposes to large companies that they adapt this work process to benefit from its advantages. The biggest one is that the final product is more likely to meet the needs of customers. In addition, iterative development allows startups to be more agile and adapt more quickly to changes in the market. Something that large companies can also benefit from.

Take a customer-centric approach.

Startups put the customer at the center of everything they do. They take the time to understand customers’ needs and wants and then develop solutions that meet them. This allows them to createproducts that solve real problems and meet market needs. Of course, INNOVERSE wants large companies to benefit from this approach as well.

Imagine a company whose business is credit cards, which wants tochange its focus to focus on the customer. How would INNOVERSE help you?

The first would be to identify customer needs, which are likely to focus on convenience, security, and ease of use. From there, the company would have to develop solutions that meet these needs.

For example, the company could conduct market research and data analysis to better understand aspects such as:

• How customers are using their credit cards.

• What functions are important to them.
• The type of problems they are experiencing.

• And from there develop solutions that meet these needs; for example, a mobile application that allows customers to make payments more easily and securely, or a fraud protection function that detects and prevents fraudulent transactions.

Taking a customer-centric approach also involves listening to and responding to customer feedback to continuously improve your productsand services. Subsequently, the company that has carried out this active listening work will use this feedback to make iterative improvements in its products and services. In this way you will better cover the needs of your customers.

Use emerging technologies.

Startups also tend to use emerging technologies to create innovative solutions. This can include technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain or augmented reality. By using these technologies effectively, startups can create solutions that are more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective.

At Ideafoster we know that the reluctance of large companies to adoptemerging technologies can be due to several reasons. Among them, the lack of resources to invest in new technologies, resistance to change in organizational culture, concern about data security and privacy or lack ofexperience in new technologies, among others.

However, INNOVERSE also relies on the use of these technologies because there are several benefits for large companies that decide to use them. For example, the following:

• Greater efficiency and cost reduction: By using emerging technologies such as process automation and artificial intelligence, large companies can improve efficiency in performing tasks and reduce costs associated with them.
• Improving customer experience: Emerging technologies can help large enterprises deliver a personalized and satisfying customer experience. How? Through the identification of patterns and preferences, as well as the automation of processes.
• Mayor data analysis capacity: Technologies such as data analysis and artificial intelligence are of great help to large companies when analyzing large amounts of data in real time. The immediate consequence is that decision-making is better informed.
• Market differentiation: large companies using emerging technologies stand out in the market thanks to their ability to offer innovative solutions to customers. This significantly improves theircompetitive position.
• Scalability: Emerging technologies can help large companies scale their operationseffectively, without having to significantly increase their workforce and reducing human error. A clear case of this is cloud computing. The cloud allows companies to access compute, storage and software resources over the Internet, instead of having to invest in their own hardware and software. This means businesses can scale their compute and storage capacity as needed, without having to make large infrastructure investments.

Collaboration

Startups also tend to be more open to collaboration with other companies and organizations. This allows them to gain access to resources they otherwise wouldn’t have and  allows them to create more comprehensive and effective solutions. Collaborationcan also help startups accelerate their growth and increase their reach.

Large companies often have more rigid structures and more complex hierarchies that make collaboration difficult. In addition, in some of them there may be an internal culture that values interdepartmental competition more than cooperation. Concerns about data security and intellectual property, on the other hand, can make companies reluctant to collaborate with others.

However, INNOVERSE is committed to introducing collaborative practices in large companies due to the advantages they entail. For example, the following:

• Access to new technologies and knowledge: Collaboration with other companies and organizations gives large companies access to new technologies and knowledge that they would not otherwise enjoy. This can help them develop more innovative and effective solutions to both new and long-standing problems.

• Improved efficiency and reduced costs: It can also help companies improve their efficiency and reduce costs by sharing resources and knowledge. For example, two companies can collaborate to share research and development costs.

• Broadening the customer base: reaching new markets and audiences through collaboration with other companies.

• Accelerating innovation: By working collaboratively with other companies, large organizations can accelerate innovation. The reason is that they havethe possibility to take advantage of the experience and knowledge of their collaborators. This can help them develop solutions faster and stay ahead of the competition.

• Fostering company culture: By encouraging internal and external collaboration, large companies will create a more collaborative and team-focused company culture, which can improve employee morale and increase productivity.

INNOVERSE in numbers

Collaboration proposal – INNOVERSE (Basic)

Single price per innovation cycle broken down as follows:

• Configuring Innoverse
  • Corporate Innovation Program
  • Access to the IF/Canvia ideation platform
  • Shaping the innovation process
  • Defining the challenge
  • Accessing Innoverse Canvas elements

Note: To learn more about pricing and working method, book a meeting.

Collaboration proposal – INNOVERSE (Silver)

Single price per innovation cycle broken down as follows:

• Configuring Innoverse
  • Corporate Innovation Program
  • Access to the IF/Canvia ideation platform
  • Setting up the innovation process
  • Defining the challenge
  • Accessing Innoverse Canvas elements

• Running Innoverse
  • Intrapreneurship training for employees
  • Access and training in elements of Innovation Canvas
  • Presentation and pitch training
  • Implementationof the Ideas and Decisions Committee
  • A week on site with ideators before the Decision Summit

Note: To learn more about pricing and working method, book a meeting.

Collaboration proposal – INNOVERSE (Gold)

Single price per innovation cycle broken down as follows:

• Configuring Innoverse
  • Corporate Innovation Program
  • Access to the IF/Canvia ideation platform
  • Shaping the innovation process
  • Defining the challenge
  • Accessing Innoverse Canvas elements

• Running Innoverse
  • Intrapreneurship training for employees
  • Access and training in elements of Innovation Canvas
  • Presentation and pitch training
  • Implementation of the Summit of Ideas and Decisions
  • A week on site with ideators before the Decision Summit

• Innoverse Implementation
  • Pretype and prototype for each of the 5 ideas
  • Market validity and surveys with the target group

Note: To learn more about pricing and working method, book a meeting.

INNOVERSE in a nutshell

From everything we have developed in this article, this is what you should keep in mind if you want your company to remain relevant:

INNOVERSE is a corporate innovation platform that offers different levels of collaboration to help companies develop innovative solutions and improve their competitiveness. Through INNOVERSE, Ideafoster helps you define challenges, develop solutions, train employees, and validate ideas with potential customers.

In addition, INNOVERSE offers a flexible approach that can be adapted to the specific needs of each company and has a team of professionals with experience in corporate innovation and entrepreneurship that will help guide the process. Simply put, INNOVERSE is avaluable investment for any company looking to improve its innovation process and develop more effective solutions for its customers and its business.