How to boost your innovation research

Mapegy   ·   Oct 4 2018

 

As the key to disruptive solutions that drive future business growth, research plays a fundamental role throughout the innovation process. It allows companies to adapt to fast-changing industries and technologies, enhance knowledge and skills within the organization, and teaches team members to assess their own services and processes and integrate new ones. Every company –regardless of their size- should stimulate their capacity for innovation in order to succeed. Here are some methods to improve your research efficiently:

STAY ON TOP OF INDUSTRY TRENDS

Keeping yourself informed about the latest industry trends and developments is decisive to gaining a competitive edge in the global tech market. Staying abreast of emerging technologies can position yourself way ahead of the curve, allowing you to identify new opportunities for growth, define your strategy and make more effective decisions.  You should always take a close look at different fields and monitor similar ideas that are being developed. Additionally, seeing how different business models have handled challenges or adapted to the disruption of new technologies can help inspire your solutions.

Getting a deep overview of a market that is subject to continuous change can be time-consuming. Using regular search engines or subscribing to magazines, journals, newsletters and RSS feeds are no longer the best way to approach your research on technology innovations. Our SCOUT offers access to the most recent industry trends and publications quickly, efficiently and with minimal effort. Our innovation management tool accesses global information from websites, patents, news articles, researches, social media posts, podcasts, databases, etc. Then, it applies different machine learning algorithms to analyze, structure, summarize and present the results in interactive formats, so you can obtain a clear overview of any topic, industry, organization or scientific field.

DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR COMPETITORS

It doesn’t matter whether you are working for a small business or a big corporation – it’s essential that you stay up-to-date with other companies and institutions in order to be competitive, identify new areas to explore, and check how you are performing compared to others in the market.

With SCOUT you can examine the impact, relevance, advances and projects of your competitors instantly. It shows you the publication activity, partnerships and market movements of companies, newcomers, universities and government agencies that are currently defining the industry.

TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE

Building strategic partnerships will help you spur innovation at your organization. The most ingenious technological solutions have traditionally been attributed to powerful partnerships; they can compensate for weaknesses and build up strengths so that your company can improve its performance.

In addition to keeping an eye on your competitors, MAPEGY.SCOUT allows you to find potential partners and networking opportunities by displaying profiles of the big players inside and outside your industry (inventors, researchers, managers, businesses and institutions). Thus, you will be able to scan their publications, partnerships, related news and social media accounts.

KEEP ONE STEP AHEAD

Large corporations tend to ignore unforeseen problems –newcomers, political and economic factors- when they define their marketing strategies, and small companies have to adapt quickly to a constantly changing markets. Hence, accurate forecasting may be crucial to determine your business strategy, make adjustments, prevent possible financial problems, take advantage of business opportunities and polish your future performance. SCOUT analyzes the vast amounts of information related to your query -articles, social media posts, news, product releases…-, collects it and aggregates it into forecasts, providing you with a timeline of predictions related to your industry or field of interest.

BUILD AN EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK CULTURE

There’s no set path to innovation or success, but companies should cultivate collaboration and foster a work environment where teams are encouraged to think outside the box and share their ideas. Cooperation between teams can lead to a more thorough research as needs and opportunities of every department will be taken into account. Team members can use SCOUT to manage collaboration (configuring their workflows, bookmarking, saving queries and analyzes; and sharing information). They can also upload their own data and content, and the rights to all created data will still belong to them. In addition, SCOUT users are able to request information for the platform and integrate it into their information system.