Managing innovation is not an easy job and needs to be supported by some technological tools like idea management systems. When the world is buzzing with innovation that has turned out to the prime driver of business that wants to maintain its competitive edge, it is only natural that a lot of brain storming is going on all around about the best ways to manage innovation. The problem of plenty is faced when ideas and suggestions are invited. These can now be collected online and managed efficiently with the purpose of making best use of the best ideas with the help of enterprise software that provides the ideal platform of innovation management. But to understand, why there is so much talking about innovation, which was always there, it is necessary to have a look at the process of evolution that it has gone through.
It was there earlier
The power of innovation has always been recognized by business enterprises. In earlier days, the initiative was there but it lacked direction and purpose. Companies used to include suggestion schemes in their business process in order to derive cost benefits. There was a loosely constructed framework for managing innovation that had a lot of shortcomings.
- The ideas that were invited were not guided by any business goals or needs of the company like product improvement or process improvement. This is the reason why the quality of ideas that were submitted in the suggestion boxes were often far below expectations and the response of employees was also not encouraging.
- There was no defined system of sorting, evaluating and implementing ideas. Contributors looked upon the suggestion boxes as typical black boxes where the ideas and suggestions simply vanished without any trace. They never came to know what happened to the suggestions. This made them lose confidence in the system and the de-motivation resulted in rendering the scheme defunct in no time.
- The system lacked consistency in timely evaluation of suggestions and there were no signs of a credible system that can work.
The change that has happened
Using technology for managing innovation brought about revolutionary changes in exploring the powers of innovation in a more fruitful way. The tools of idea management software that are being widely used as it takes care of the shortcoming of the earlier system by providing a focus to employees towards the specific needs of business around which ideas have to be generated. This lends a lot of purpose to the initiative which is empowered by technology to take it to the next level. The result is that better quality of suggestions in larger numbers is now being generated. Administering and managing the system has become much focused and easier. Using the databases of the system, it is now possible to set up and manage an evaluation process that has the capability of reminding evaluators to pay attention to unattended ideas and deadlines.
The use of technology has underlined the importance that companies now attach to innovation management, which was unthinkable even a few years ago.