In today’s business climate, all executives seem to talk about is reaching out of the proverbial box and astounding the world with new disruptive concepts. As the world becomes flatter and products more commoditized, everyone’s searching for that differentiator, that one competitive advantage that would leave their ecosystem with their jaws dropped.
But what does this actually mean? Where do ideas come from and how?
In Skai, we believe the answer lies in Innovation Management. A relatively new organizational function in the business world, Innovation Management means that ideas which spring out of every part of the company have a centralized home where they’ll be incubated, tested and promoted. Sure, some ideas find their way to implementation “naturally”, during meetings and roadmap discussions. But in most cases, ideas, and especially ideas out of the ordinary agenda, get stuck in the drawer due to lack of time or resources to take them forward. And this is where we come in.
We see our job as a 3-act challenge:
1. Encouraging ideation both internally (among employees) and externally (clients, partners and other external voices)
2. Enabling an easy way to share ideas and concepts across the company
3. Implementing the best ideas in a dedicated incubator, where the strongest survive
Additionally, we encourage a culture of innovation by throwing internal events and competitions (like our recent Hackathon), and by teaching creative thinking methodologies in order to incorporate them into our routine brainstorming sessions.
“This sounds good in theory”, I hear you think, “but what does all of this have to do with the real world and the way we do business?” Well, it is important to us to get creative thinking principles into the company’s DNA. But we don’t sit and brainstorm all day… our emphasis lies on implementation and a constant drive to get results. Ideas undergo a thorough process where we test the technological and business principles vigorously, so qualified ideas result in a successful proof of concept, accompanied by a verified business model.
At the end of the day our initiatives undergo the same treatment as other new directions. The difference is their origins, and the promise that when it comes to Skai’s innovation, no stone remains unturned. Ask an innovation professional to think out of the box, and the answer you’ll get will be “there is no box”! In the software realm and in the internet world in particular, we believe our team’s tagline comes to life: “Skai Innovation. Anything’s possible!”
