Technology is changing at such a rapid pace that it’s nearly impossible for businesses to keep up with the speed of innovation.
But what is innovation? Why is it important? And how do you spur it in a world where technology seems to change at light speed?
Innovation is not just about technical experimentation, and it’s not just about invention. It is about the intersection of everything going on in technology with real-life problems and how that changes the world. It’s about real-life instances when technology really changes the game: the way we live, the way we work, and the way we play.
Innovation is taking the invention and applying it and really changing the way the world works. In order to innovate in today’s market, with technology changing so quickly, you need true expertise in both technology and a business domain.
Generally, businesses are great at understanding their markets and their customers’ pain points. What’s becoming harder is for companies to be truly great at that intersection – bringing the domain expertise and the deep knowledge of the technical invention together, while then applying that to the unique domains or business problems.
Invention is being done in pure technology companies who are coming up with new devices and new low-level ways to use and apply technology for its own sake. They are exposing us to new hardware and new devices and new APIs that can be leveraged.
In a handful of software companies, product innovation is being spurred by a unique combination of domain expertise and technological foresight. Unfortunately, for most other companies, this type of innovation is nearly impossible. Technological advancement is simply happening too fast.
In a world where software is now your brand and revenue growth is being driven primarily by software products, how do traditional services companies keep up? How do they innovate?
More and more companies are innovating through partnership. Software product development partners excel at packaging technology to solve real-world problems. These companies are skilled at combining a client’s domain knowledge with a product mindset and deep technological expertise to bring the types of software products to market that change the way we work, the way we live and the way we play. This is true innovation.