English | EN Step by step
Aug 18, 2014
Faced with stories of new technologies and innovations, companies often make one of these two mistakes:
- Sometimes they feel they don’t need to know more. They are convinced and determined to start implementing a radically new way of working immediately. Perhaps overly ambitious, they want to jump but forget that they risk falling.
- Most companies, however, applaud the innovator but, as far as their own firm is concerned, think that the innovations’ advantages don’t apply to them and they anticipate too much trouble implementing them. They keep doing business as they used to. They stand still.
It doesn’t really matter which is worse. Truth is both attitudes can kill your business.
Even though innovation may sound like something sudden and disruptive, and is often marketed as such, its best implementation in business technology is gradual. What distinguishes sustainable, truly innovative companies is that they manage to cycle through that gradualness at a very fast pace, not jumping from one innovation to the other. (There may have been some unsustainable companies like the latter though.)
As often in life, you have to find the middle way. You may feel uncomfortable jumping, but you really don’t want to be standing still. So it is important that you find ways to do move ahead, step by step. So feel inspired by stories of innovation to look for steps to take in your organization. They don’t necessarily need to “change the game” or “cause a sudden turnaround” overnight. They do need to keep the company moving forward.
Much of finding that middle way is a matter of self-reflection. Like on the one hand: which are innovations that could be of the most advantagous for my firm in the short and long term? But on the other hand also: at which maturity level are we now? What are the right steps right now and what are the right next steps for tomorrow?
To answer these questions, it helps to speak about this: with co-workers, friends from other firms, people from Sogeti. Once you take up this exercise, you are setting things in motion to bring about innovation in your firm. Because innovation is often exactly that: rethinking known ways to apply in different contexts. So have the reflex to whenever you hear great story about innovation, or you are reading a post on SogetiLabs, to think what it could mean for you and how it could improve your business, step by step.
About the author
