Crowdsourcing Software for Enterprises Can Help Simplify Innovation

In order for an organization to remain sustainably competitive, they must innovate. It is common to hear managers talk about innovation but, too often, these discussions are ornamental only. It seems that the word “innovation” is abused all over the world and one of the reasons for that is that it is so difficult to define just what innovation actually is. To simplify this, it is recommended that businesses consider installing crowdsourcing software for enterprises. In so doing, they take a first step towards demonstrating that they take innovation seriously and don’t just pay lip service to it.

Crowdsourcing Software for Enterprises Defines Innovation

The definition of innovation has changed over the years, perhaps because it has been innovated itself. The first time it was described was by Schumpeter in 1947, who described it as being an invention that entrepreneurs would commercialize. In other words, this suggests innovation means that a new process, service, or product is created. It means that something new is introduced to the market, through commercialization or utilization.

What it doesn’t mean, however, is that the product, service, or process has to be new to the world. Rather, it happens when a certain organization first starts to use an idea that is new to them. That same idea may have been used elsewhere for decades, in other words. Whatever is being innovated, therefore, doesn’t have to be groundbreaking or novel. It can simply mean changing an existing practice, thereby increasing productivity. It is about taking existing inventions and technologies in an effort to improve systems, processes, or products.

Innovation is almost always done in processes and products. However, global brands and firms are now looking at how they can use innovation to improve their existing business models. The result is that scholars all over the world have started to define different types of innovation as well. Those include:

Social innovations.

User driven innovations, as defined by Hippel.

Open innovations, as defined by Chesbrough in 2003.

Frugal innovations, as defined by Radjou and Prabhu in 2015.

Collaborative innovations.

Reverse innovations, as defined by Govindarajann in 2009.

Disruptive innovations, as defined by Chirstensen in 1997.

Modular and architectural innovations, as defined by Henderson and Clark in 1990.

Radical innovations.

Incremental innovations.

What crowdsourcing software for enterprises isn’t designed to do, is help to define what innovation actually is. The depth and breadth of innovation is simply too large for that. Rather, it is there to simplify the process so that businesses can actually learn to practice it. It doesn’t matter to an organization whether they engage in social innovation or disruptive innovation, it simply matters that they innovate at all. And workers within that organization also don’t want to know about those scholastic definitions, they want to be involved in the process and determine, where, when, and how to innovate. Essentially, the software makes all of that possible, encouraging overall business growth.

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