What is innovation management?

Innovation is almost universally recognised as a positive for any business. Organisations want to be disruptive, setting new bars and pioneering new ideas. But innovation, in and of itself, is not beneficial unless it is capable of benefiting employees, stakeholders, or customers.

Innovation management depends on breaking innovation down into something quantifiable and measurable. Once this has been accomplished, businesses can start to see the actual benefits of innovation management and can begin to work towards establishing effective management practices.

The most obvious benefit of innovation management is an increased ability to collect and organise valuable new ideas. Innovation management tools make it easy to gather these insights from across the organisation in a single location, tracking and organising them for quick review.

There will always be risk in trying something new. Innovation management recognises and accepts this reality, focusing on reducing risk as much as possible and identifying the ideas that have the greatest chance of succeeding. This allows businesses to invest more time and money into the innovations that are most likely to pay off.

Outdated ideas and ineffective processes generally all have something in common: They are not cost effective. Taking a clear, calculated look at new innovations helps businesses identify the areas where they are overspending, and replace outdated concepts with those that are more likely to generate a better ROI.

The best employees are attracted to businesses that push the envelope. Organisations that are known for their innovation generally find that they are approached by a higher calibre of prospective hire. And because innovative companies naturally appeal to innovative talent, these new hires continue to promote positive change within the business itself.

Recurring issues tend to become more accepted over time, to the point where organisations may continue to employ inefficient work arounds or simply tolerate losses rather than continue to run into walls with ineffective solutions. Innovation management promotes new approaches to resolving these ongoing problems, allowing businesses to readdress recurring problems and find better working solutions more effectively.

True innovation just isn’t possible without including the workforce. Understanding the employee perspective and working with staff to crowdsource ideas provides unique insights. It also allows employees to feel more included in major decisions, and promotes forward thinking, ongoing communication, and inclusion. The end result is happier, more engaged employees who know that their opinions matter.

Effective innovation management allows users to not only aggregate ideas, but also keep track of ideas that are in the process of being reviewed, approved, or executed. Innovation management tools include alert systems, signalling users whenever there are status changes to in-process ideas.