Innovation is being defined at all time by anyone on any point of this globe. The very singularity of innovation is that it is a concept which is always under construction and challenges status quo to build a path to improvement. It can concern products, processes, practices. It drives investments, brand value, shareholders benefits. It creates jobs, transforms economy, links societies together. It encourages knowledge sharing, overseas meetings, unlimited creativity with the power of collaboration and open innovation. Voices and points of view differ invariably, but divergence and diversity are good: they provide different stand points and methodologies to understand a picture in multiple dimensions. WAI has been looking at many facets of today’s innovation voice. Here is what it sounds like through a high level segmentation of online innovation information providers.

 

Financial analysts & Investors:

What they do: They measure innovation through a series of business indicators which measure markets reaction to innovation strategies. They also comment on organisational efficiency, leadership styles and sales results. They obviously help understand companies’ financial health from short to longer terms. Many of them will also comment trends with economic background and company history, which adds another dimension to innovation analysis.

What they provide: they help building an economic context to innovation.

 

Customers & Influencers:

What they do: They provide a tangible view of innovation results, verifying at the end of the value chain the direct impact of innovation on sales and brand image. Although under marketing, cultural, social and psychological influence, a customer will validate the end-to-end and global efficiency of innovation and provide feedback. Influencers are early adopters commenting and reviewing products to go through a technical validation of innovation. They help understand the importance of innovation, often highlighting competition and portfolio strategies.

What they provide: They bring a clearer evaluation of innovation.

 

Companies

What they say: They develop innovation strategies, processes, products, and face them all with the reality of the market. They are a living example of organisation that fail and succeed in implementing change, and drive markets in an ever changing world: new entrants, increasing competition and cost pressure. They show how we can embrace business challenges by rolling-out sets of solutions which are increasingly developed with customers, third parties, creating new business models. Companies are key trends setters in innovation by testing to markets strategies inspired and influenced both by markets and value chain stake holders.

What they provide: Companies provide innovation stories with an end to end point of view, as for marketing and financial reasons they are engaged and transparent in their objectives.

 

C-Level & Leaders

What they say: They provide a more personal approach to business innovation, as when interviewed they tend to correlate their business experience with personal experience and personal drives. They also help voicing their company’s objectives in light of specific events and challenges, for example when launching a new product or announcing new partnerships and acquisitions. C-Level leaders showcase the innovation attitude of their companies, as another way to convince partners, customers and investors that their innovation strategy will reach its objectives.

What they provide: they help shaping the innovation story of their companies by embodying it in the face of experts, markets, competitors. They streamline strategic goals and confront them with reality.

 

Innovation Experts

What they say: they explain and define innovation methodologies, tools and techniques that shape today’s and tomorrow’s innovation, looking at all of past, current and upcoming events, innovation stories, and personal expertise. They have their own views and style, and seek to inspire all other innovation voices with practical, sociological or even business aspect of their knowledge.

What they provide: They bring a personal voice and touch to innovation, with stories that have enough background and knowledge to justify their enthusiasm. They help shaping the innovation message by linking different horizons and approaches into their leadership thoughts.

 

Schools & Institutes

What they say: many top leading business schools and strategies teach innovation as to future engineers, business men and women, future builders of this world. Over time they have developed different approaches to common goals, and offer a deep understanding into their researches and key findings. Their scholar approach provides an end-to-end view of theories and practices, which helps understanding innovation on a timeline dimensions. The close links between innovation, anthropology, economics, computer engineering, politics and many other education and upper research topics that an endless information is available on how to best drive innovation to global success (instead of individual ones).

What they provide: they help formatting innovation in a shape that is understandable, practical, meaningful and appealing to learn more.

 

Research & Consulting firms

What they say: through their on-going work for and with customers, research and consulting firms help shaping innovation through real-life case studies and in-depth analysis on innovation market and strategies. They provide comments using their detailed knowledge database and expert analysis to understand the background of a specific innovation trend, describe what should be done to roll-out strategies in line with existing infrastructures and organisations, and give a precise view of results they have helped develop.

What they provide: they help understand innovation from the inside with an external loop on key trends and strategies. They also provide valuable data and forecasts to support their analysis and have a direct influence on customers’ strategies and organisations, hence a direct impact on innovation.

 

Press & Medias

What they say: through their highlights of political, economics, strategic and business events, they help understand the direct and indirect drivers for innovation today. They link together all of the business issues that can explain a trend and provide expert comments on specific strategies. They also are the main media companies, experts, C-Level leaders and all innovation stakeholders would use to showcase and understand innovation strategies. Because they are many and have dedicated area of expertise, they help shaping innovation through different points of view with the necessary step-back to have a wider picture of what’s happening on a global basis.

What they bring: they help shaping complete stories around innovation, from its infancy in companies’ ideas, to roll-out through comments on key activities, and even results when reporting regularly insights and figures as shared by stakeholders.

 

Science & Technology experts

What they say: they are at the heart of innovation, and share with us the key advances they make and how it’s going to impact us in the future. They have very specific areas of expertise which they develop in-depth and have a direct impact on the whole innovation value-chain. They make breakthrough discoveries which show how innovation is running on the scientific and technological sides. They help us understand what will be future trends, future usage, what the world will look like tomorrow if we support their discoveries.

What they provide: scientists and technology experts give a pragmatic view of what can be done today and tomorrow, creating and showcasing a wide range of advances they develop through their dedicated work. They are the ones who make innovation work from a technical point of view.

 

Politics and Public Organisations

What they say: they help understand what’s happening from a country, regional point of view and highlight the political advances and struggles of innovation. They also help understanding the external impact of policies, public investments and wider public support to strategies and technological advances that are made by all the other groups. They are the “real-life” framework in which we all work and live, and enable innovation to sustain and grow on large scales with political impact.

What they bring: they develop the legal and political framework around innovation, they help understand what are countries and regions needs and priorities, they have a direct impact on knowledge, political cross-pollination and perspectives.

 

Business Experts and Professional Communities

What they say: they provide an operational expertise on definition solutions to specific market conditions and complex problems. They have a specific understanding of customers, competition, supplier and disruptive strategies, they translate their individual visions into matrix type of organisations and projects. They help understand business models and processes, they provide their own analysis of requirements for change in customer relationships, business and enterprise strategy, innovation management as a daily activity.

What they bring: a professional viewpoint on innovation, its marketing impact, its challenges and change needed.

 

Each person and each group are moved, impacted, challenging innovation as it stands today to improve it for tomorrow. The stories, experiences and comments are different from expert to expert, and can be combined to shape a wider picture of innovation. In our networked world, innovation is developed and influenced by many, using different business and knowledge model. WAI is carefully listening to each of these voices, understanding the background of where they’re from, what they intend to do and where they lead us, to help building innovation through one voice that can accelerate change.