Business Innovation Through Technology

Please find below a video of the presentation I did at the recent SAP Select event in Berlin.

The goal of the 24-minute presentation was to avoid innovation theory and instead talk about eleven real-life organizations that are doing something different thanks to the availability of new technologies.

“The biggest barrier to business innovation today is not the lack of new technology — it’s making that technology simple to use and deploy”

The presentation is grouped into the four main areas where organizations have the biggest new opportunity to change the way they do business, using technology to:

  • Get closer to customers — more personalized customer service, understanding customer needs, creating new products and services, etc. (4 examples)
  • Empowering employees — innovation is impossible unless employees embrace the change, so it’s essential to help employees understand their part in corporate strategy, and make sure the right people are engaged (2 examples)
  • Optimizing the use of resources — real-time systems and sensors result in the “datafication” of previously invisible processes, which can then be analyzed and optimized. (4 examples)
  • Improve ties to customers, partners, and suppliers as part of the new “networked economy” (1 example)

One key trend is that all organizations are now “powered by information”, and this means there’s a big opportunity to learn from best practices in completely different industries. Whatever your sector or line of business, I believe that there are elements in each of these examples that you can apply to your business.