Voice of the Industry: Innovation

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Key takeaways

Convenience and digitisation are top trends set to have an impact across industries

Businesses see convenience (86%) and digitisation (81%) as the top trends set to impact their industries in the short and medium term. While digitisation is relevant across business operations and can have an important impact on sustainability through creating energy efficiency, both point towards improving consumer experiences.

Successful innovation underpinned by consumer focus

57% of business professionals feel that successful innovation depends on solving a consumer need. While 83% of businesses feel they have a strong understanding of consumers in their market, they are less certain about the next five years. Developing products and services that create new categories and use occasions depends on continuing to improve knowledge about consumers to better anticipate future opportunities.

Respondents cite internal barriers as largest roadblocks to innovation

Inadequate collaboration between departments is seen as the top barrier to innovation, with 30% of respondents selecting this option, while 25% cite lack of internal alignment on priorities. Improving communication across departments is a crucial first step in developing innovation strategies. With 23% of respondents unsure what the key obstacles are, companies can prioritise defining and framing innovation so that employees have a deeper understanding of the obstacles as well as opportunities.

Companies prioritise building digital transformation and sustainability over Increasing profit and revenue rank behind building digital transformation and sustainability in terms of corporate priorities. This reflects existing pressure on companies to stay ahead of competition through improving operational capabilities and ensuring that corporate social responsibilities meet industry standards as well as consumer expectations.

Companies are developing capabilities to innovate through consumer engagement

Looking ahead, leading companies are developing capabilities, especially around more sophisticated avenues of consumer engagement, that will enable them to better identify, design and implement new products and services through co-production. These strategies attempt to leverage to their advantage the degree to which innovation is driven by consumer patterns by involving consumers in the design process.