In today’s fast paced and competitive world, do you know what
is the main objective of most organizations? It is not being able to
cater to the service and product demands but every organization also
looks forward to establishing a personal connect with their target
consumers. Apart from offering quality products and services, it is also
crucial to address the audience in person and understand their pulse
i.e. knowing what keeps them connected to a brand and what does not.
Over the past few years, forward thinking enterprises have been relying
on the process of open innovation to attain this objective.
The
modern day process of idea management therefore is not only about
“thinking out of the box”, or jotting it down in a pen and paper and
executing the same within the confines of a conference room. It is all
about addressing the public at large and indulge in mass idea capture
that not only helps product development but also offers solutions for
daily life.
In early 2012 a conglomeration of four eminent
partners, namely Deloitte, Deutsche Telekom, HYVE and RWTH Aachen
University introduced their open innovation contest named ‘Find &
Follow for M2M’ (machine-to-machine communication) ideas and concepts.
By nature M2M is a next generation technology that enables devices to
communicate with each other. The specialty of this technology is that it
allows an individual to find and follow almost any conceivable entity
or object on this planet. The competition welcomes everyone to
contribute ideas for tracking anything in categories such as animals,
sports, healthcare, safety and security, nature, environment and many
more. Innovative ideas came from across the globe from Pakistan, India,
Nigeria, U.S and Germany with ideas such as Pizza Tracker and Remote
Parking Disk that can be put to daily use.
Furthermore, many companies tend to use the process of idea management
not only to solve daily issues but also to provide people with a better
and Eco friendly way of life. Apart from establishing deeper and
meaningful audience connect, these companies aim to improve the general
living and lifestyle standards and incorporate beneficial practices.
Plastic processing today is a major concern globally. World leader in
extrusion processes Reifenhauser, Germany launched an open innovation
contest making use of the crowd sourcing software to generate creative
ideas for plastic processing. In order to make optimum use of the
contest, participants were asked to focus on aspects such as the
products that can be produced with extrusion, fresh machine developments
that can be executed to the extrusion process for greater benefits and
so on. The outcome of the contest apart from hundreds of entries were
few winning and “out of the box” ideas that was adopted by the company
acknowledging the contributor.
Whether a company wants to
address global concerns, generic issues or develop a new product the
main objective of idea management is to come up with something
meaningful that benefits the world. However, companies need to keep in
mind that when it’s about benefiting the world then the best ideas come
from the people of this world. Hence, companies that are progressive in
nature know that ideas can be generated from anywhere and find creative
ways to tap into it.