Crisis Innovation Guide: Ready to Act? (part 5 of 5)

As we have seen, individuals and organisations tend to think and act with a short-term, rather than a long-term view. By ignoring early warning signs we get into trouble. We do not know what crisis will be next. After COVID-19, we will most likely be better prepared for a respiratory pandemic, but our learning should reach further than that. With climate alarm bells ringing everywhere, rising inequality, political shifts, and the threat of job obsolescence due to digitalisation, there are definitely a lot more disruptions coming up. And while you cannot drive the mist away, you can make sure you improve your ability to navigate.

This is a good moment to think not only in terms of making our organisations more responsive to change, but rather make them regenerative by investing in a culture of innovation. An innovation culture is a resilient culture. It is not built overnight and it depends on a long-term investment in people, process and purpose.

And while the idea of organisational culture might be a bit ambiguous, there are some straightforward dimensions to think of:

• Lead authentically and lead with purpose.
• Set long-term metrics to change mindsets.
• Communicate future horizons.
• Create the conditions for people to learn.
• Offer your employees training possibilities to stay relevant.
• Keep your clients close and keep learning about their underlying needs.
• Organise small informal meetings with leadership commitment.
• Rethink 9-to-5 attendance and commuting.

Creating the right conditions to shape a culture of innovation that makes your organisation future-proof can be a daunting exercise. With UMIO’s Service Science Factory (SSF), we can help you identify business challenges and potential innovations, and make them tangible. Projects usually include qualitative and quantitative customer analysis, market trend analysis, competitor analysis, value analysis, service blueprinting, persona development, a range of new service ideas and a ready-to-implement service concept. Outcomes, however, are always adapted to the specific needs of our client organisation.

Some options to consider:

In order to make adequate strategic or operational customer-centric decisions,  you should have both a broad, as well as a deep understanding of your customer. Customer Research sprints provide you with the necessary customer insights to discover where your potential for user-centric innovation lies. Ideation sprints help you to quickly generate tons of new fresh ideas to broaden your perspective and select the ideas that make most sense.

In order to be more successful in your innovation endeavours, you need to have the right skills, mindset and knowledge to make a sustainable impact. In our open training tracks, you can learn all about Customer-Centric Innovation and Design Thinking and build your own innovation capacity. We offer several masterclasses and courses on design thinking and innovation management.

With an innovation expedition we will guide your company through a design sprint to develop an answer to the most pressing business challenges. Together, we will also develop a customer-centric new or improved service, business model or complete customer experience.

This article is the fifth and final part of a larger series of five contributions, which together constitute a ‘Crisis Innovation Guide’; a guide with tips and tools on how innovation can help your organisation prepare for the turbulent period ahead. The guide is constructed around multiple scientific and opinion articles, interviews with researchers, and input from various webinars and conferences, the sum of which provides an overview of the latest talking points of the COVID-19 crisis.

From 16 November 2020 onwards, every week will see a new contribution as part of the Crisis Innovation Guide. The guide will be made available as a downloadable PDF to members of UMIO Prime as of 14 December 2020 through the UMIO Prime app. The app also provides access to all available articles of the series until now.

If you feel our expertise on innovation can help you and your organisation get ahead, please get in touch and let’s start creating an impact together!