Maintaining an innovative mindset in a highly dynamic environment comes with a host of challenges. While many organizations understand the need to stay on top of their competition, not all have the means and the knowledge to make it happen. Indeed, many have applied technology to help automate their processes while removing the mundane tasks to ensure resources go into worthwhile projects. But, they are not enough. Automation should be integrated with innovation.
In the wake of the pandemic, company closures and employee layoffs have resulted in peak unemployment insurance claims. This incident opened up opportunities for companies to innovate. Goldsmith-Pinkham and Sojourner, for instance, developed a model that allowed them to predict the number of applications for unemployment insurance (UI). This innovation helped economists and business leaders establish processes to help them thrive amidst unprecedented change.
The Cycle of Innovation and Automation
Business winners know that interlinking automation and innovation is critical for success. As mentioned, automation allows for innovation. However, there's another side to the coin. Innovation also means developing new ways to "automate" processes. In the end, helping companies become more flexible and agile in an ever-changing business ecosystem.
Making this work means leveraging transformational changes within processes and systems. The beauty of innovation lies in how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) come into play in improving automation. AI does more than automate tasks. It also helps uncover new potentials, thereby increasing opportunities for innovation. In the business world, the results of automation and innovation are critical now more than ever.
Companies should do more than automate their processes. They also have the responsibility of continuously innovating to address the demands of their customers while maintaining compliance with various regulatory bodies. And this can be possible by automating the innovation process.
Automating the Innovation Process: A Possibility?
The innovation process has undergone an evolution, too. Previously, innovation was reactive. Innovators would come up with solutions to an existing problem. As times changed, so did the innovation process. The current demand is toward a proactively, reactive approach.
As a background, a proactive approach refers to developing a new capability, delivering novel technologies and products to target people who didn't even know they needed these commodities but could not live without them once discovered.
Alternatively, a reactive approach focuses more on what changes can be made in response to the target audience's needs.
The proactively, reactive innovation dives deep into anticipating the potential needs of the target audience and developing ways to address these. Often, this strategy doesn't require bringing new things to life. It can also be about discovering how to re-engineer old products into something new to resolve a need.
When done in the context of automation operations, this approach can be more sustainable since there is less risk and investment. Here's how one can integrate automation and innovation in a proactive, reactive way:
Collect Data and Observe
All aspects of the business process should use automation systems to monitor multiple information processes and carry out data evaluation. Data should encompass all existing patents, papers, policies, and environmental/societal change.
Organize Data and Analyze
Feeding this information into a machine learning system can help operations develop technological forecasting research. Analysis resulting from these can help development or innovation teams cultivate potential scenarios to guide the innovation process.
Elucidate Design Systems
After data collection and analysis, the next step would be designing the systems where embedding products and services can occur. Through AI and machine learning, these systems will jumpstart the automation of the innovation process to the next round.
Do Strategy Planning
Once design systems are ready, strategic planning runs its course. This will give the agility and flexibility for systems to understand the current flow and stimulate the next cycle of innovation while staying aligned with the business goals.
Final Thoughts
Automation and innovation should go hand-in-hand. However, making the two concepts work simultaneously remains a challenge since most innovators and incubators contend in a highly dynamic market. For now, it remains a cycle. But, the concept is available for those who want to take up the challenge.