If you’re the leader of an enterprise software company and “innovation” isn’t on the top of your list of priorities for 2019, I encourage you to reconsider.
While it might be tempting to dismiss innovation as little more than a buzzword, research clearly shows that companies who invest in innovation are more successful. Look no further than the paper in MIT Sloan Management Review, Are Innovative Companies Profitable, which highlights a strong correlation between how successful a company is at generating innovative ideas, and the speed at which the company grew.
For enterprise software companies, I’d argue that it’s particularly important to invest in innovation efforts now because the enterprise software market is growing so quickly. According to Research And Markets paper, Global Enterprise Software Market Outlook to 2022, the global enterprise software market is will have a 5.47% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next few years. Gartner also estimates that the amount of money that IT will spend on enterprise software will grow in 2019 by at least 8 percent.
http://customerthink.com/how-enterprise-software-companies-can-innovate-feedback-moonshots-and-hackathons/
It is not a secret we live in an era full of changes. New technologies are speeding up changes in the customer behavior, and companies have to react quick not only to adapt their selves, but also try to work upfront.
However, the innovation is not new, we as human beings are being evolving since the beginning of our existence in this planet. There is only one different with what we know from innovation in the past, it should be faster, bringing value quicker to the customer. But innovation is nowadays a buzzword, very used is corporate strategy presentations and session. It seems, that this will be the “new trend” to jump into.
There are some good reasons for that, as we live is such dynamic environment (taking into account customers, competitors, new players, technologies, politics) that challenge the status quo is the only way to survive, and then success. Although there are several points to review to fully understand what does this mean, what are the benefits and how to move forward. Historically, innovation is a concept tied to technology or R&D (Research and development), but not really in other fields like marketing, finance or general management.
http://customerthink.com/be-innovator-be-customer-centric/
The UK has the world’s third largest e-commerce market and is under pressure to maintain its competitive position.
While UK firms are progressively investing in digital technology, the rapid expansion and introduction of new technologies and innovation results in a constantly changing and challenging landscape.
To remain competitive, and retain consumer loyalty, companies need to ensure they are ahead of their competitors, both nationally and internationally.
https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/UK-winners-and-losers-in-digtal-tech/
Customer feedback is the best source we have for collecting the consumer insights we need to improve our businesses. Asking for feedback, analyzing it and implementing product/service fixes where necessary can make all the difference for building brand loyalty and achieving success.
In fact, the most successful businesses today take the thoughts and feelings of their customers seriously. It's been clear to me, offering my company's, Varidesk's, products through Amazon that that retail giant sets the standard. It gathers customer insights, data and feedback, then uses that information to drive innovation in operations.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/315805/
The last 10 years of customer-driven innovation has taught Salesforce a lot. While listening is fairly simple (and fun!), using it to inform product planning is much more complex. Integrating customer feedback requires executive alignment, commitment to community, and a solution that is both simple to use and rich in information to help product managers plan effectively. Sound daunting? Well, we’re here to help because today we’re sharing some of the tips and tricks we’ve learned while building our listening machine.
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/12/4-tips-to-turn-customer-feedback-into-action.html/
An interesting article on NewMR by Ray Poynter prompted this post. He spoke about the differences between customer focus and customer centricity and the often times confusion between the two terms. That is why I tend to speak about customer first rather than customer centricity these days.
In its simplest form a customer first strategy is about thinking customer first in everything you do. Yes I know it sounds easy but it really isn’t. That it doesn’t come naturally, at least to start with. And that it involves a culture change to move the organisation in this direction. But I can assure you it’s worth it; its value is now well proven.
http://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/?open-article-id=8104004&article-title=what-a-customer-first-strategy-is--and-what-it-s-not--&blog-domain=c3centricity.com&blog-title=c3centricity/
Bookmarks on this page are managed by an admin user. 
