Digital Innovation Driven Guide

When it comes to innovation, many people probably think of Steve Jobs wearing a classic black turtleneck sweater and holding an iPhone. The iPhone is a perfect example of digital innovation. Jobs and the Apple team have made the mobile phone an indispensable part of our daily lives through disruptive innovation. Now, there are more than 1.65 billion iPhones in use around the world.

This innovation creates devices that customers want to use, while also inspiring companies of all kinds—not just those in consumer technology—to explore new and innovative ways to deliver unique products, services, and customer experiences.

What is digital innovation?

The core of digital innovation is to use modern digital technologies to optimize processes, improve customer experience, provide new business models, and solve business problems. For example, wearable devices, chatbots, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), big data, etc., are all around us. The application of these new technologies in enterprises includes:

• AR applications used by shop floor workers to check temperatures and prevent machines from overheating;

• AI that helps medical companies diagnose patients’ diseases;

• Digitize and integrate data from different sources to generate complete, real-time reports;

Why is digital innovation important?

Whether it is work or personal consumption, digitalization has been integrated into every aspect of human activities. According to a report by Foundry, 89% of enterprises plan to adopt a digital-first business strategy. In this era, enterprises no longer need to spend months or years writing lengthy and complex codes to build web and mobile applications. They can adapt to the ever-changing consumer and business habits through digital innovation and maintain market competitiveness.

Who does digital innovation serve?

Regardless of industry and size, digital innovation applies to every business that wants to stay competitive and profitable by creating products and services that consumers love.

Creating business applications is no longer the exclusive domain of the IT department. With innovative platforms like low-code, business personnel in HR, marketing, operations, finance, and any other department can build modern applications.

Comparison between digital innovation and digital transformation

Digital transformation is an ongoing process of improving performance by changing the way an enterprise thinks and operates. It involves not only the technology adopted by the enterprise, but also the people, processes and project portfolio. Digital innovation ignites creativity in developing new technologies or innovating the use of existing digital technologies, and is a prelude to digital transformation.

Three focus areas for digital innovation strategy

Although digital innovation is more closely related to technology, people and processes are key components that cannot be ignored:

• Interaction with customers, suppliers and partners

• Product and service innovation

• Internal system processes, reporting and access

1. Interaction with customers, suppliers and partners

The focus of this area is "convenience", and companies can make it easier for customers to access products by building various applications, including consulting tools, employee fact-finding assistance, and customer portals. Taking the insurance industry as an example, IBM found that 38% of customers want virtual assistants to help them complete self-service, but only 16% of insurance companies have adopted virtual assistants. In addition, 75% of customers want to see the companies they work with adopt new technologies. In other words, insurance companies can no longer provide high-quality customer service through telephone or chatbots, and they need to find new ways to interact with customers. Even though Zurich Insurance already has a multi-channel approach, it has still developed a customer-centric digital innovation strategy.

2. Product and service innovation

Whether improving existing products/services with digital components or creating entirely new ones, business differentiation is another key to implementing a digital innovation strategy. Product and service innovation often requires support for mobile services, personalized product offerings, and innovative applications.

In order to be customer-centric, Zurich Insurance created an application called FaceQuote that uses facial recognition technology. Customers only need to take a selfie on the application to quickly get a life insurance quote and receive a link to apply for whole life insurance, which revolutionizes the previously time-consuming quotation process. By using low code, Zurich developed this application in just one week.

3. Internal system processing, reporting and access

No matter how good an application is, it may not perform as well as it could without the processes to support it. Companies should consider how to automate complex internal workflows, speed up reporting and decision making, and better support employees through enhanced data accessibility and improved mobile app performance.

Zurich Insurance uses low-code technology and agile workflows to digitize back-end processes, improve work efficiency, reduce service and maintenance costs, and help employees quickly respond to customer needs and improve customer satisfaction. The results speak for themselves: In one year, Zurich Insurance processed 63,000 life insurance quotes.

End-to-end solutions are key to digital innovation

What all three areas have in common is that they all include end-to-end solutions. While off-the-shelf solutions such as third-party applications may bring unexpected complications and additional time investment, end-to-end solutions allow companies to take control of the entire process. Such solutions also have many other advantages:

• Reduce redundancy and costs

• Avoids integrating multiple solutions that don’t work together perfectly

• Increase automation and improve productivity

• Improve data security

It’s difficult to implement a digital innovation strategy if your company continues to use a patchwork of software that doesn’t integrate. This patchwork system may work well for smaller operations or projects, but as projects scale, it can become a drag and even cause downtime (see “How to Build an End-to-End Solution Using Intelligent Process Automation”).

How to start a digital innovation program

It is becoming popular for companies to establish innovation labs or "fast track" teams as incubators within the company. These teams can quickly open up business breakthroughs for the company by accelerating the delivery of applications related to digital innovation initiatives. In order to accelerate end-to-end results, the right people, processes, project portfolios and platforms are needed. Here are a few suggestions to help companies start digital innovation:

• personnel

Select two or three people from across the business and IT teams who are passionate about delivering business value. Scale down to a handful of highly focused individuals who work together to find digital solutions that solve complex business challenges.

• process

Drive innovation using agile, iterative processes without disrupting existing operations or development efforts. Accelerate new feature releases, demonstrate project progress, and gather extensive market feedback by continually refining solutions, then drive innovation initiatives faster with additional development sprints.

• Project Portfolio

Achieve wins quickly by creating a portfolio of quick wins and high-value projects. High-value projects are more likely to justify innovation across the enterprise, especially when the application is aligned with relevant strategic initiatives.

• platform

Find the right technology to empower your people and strengthen your processes. Choose a unified platform that can manage the entire application lifecycle, including project management, team collaboration, rapid application development, instant cloud deployment, and application management.

How low-code development drives digital innovation

Low-code development is revolutionizing the way companies build mobile and web applications. Platforms such as Siemens Low-Code will drive emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR), the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning and transform them into solutions that can solve real-world problems.

For more information, visit What Low-Code Can Do and The Digital Execution Playbook.