Innovation management software has come a long way since the first ‘idea management’ software was introduced over 10 years ago. Today you can get software to support almost all of the innovation stages, processes and approaches companies use. But it is not enough. Innovation management software today needs to transition from an ‘infrastructure’ capability – ways of storing, cataloging, gathering, sharing and commenting – to an ‘insight’ capability – ways of helping humans explore, create, synthesize and understand complex systems.
The author of this article makes the case that innovation management software needs to evolve in the following ways over the next few years.
- From incremental, value-chain focus to disruptive, ecosystem focus (strategy)
- From 80% “ideate” to 80% “explore and scale” (people)
- From ideation focus to end-to-end focus (process)
- From tactical enablers to next-generation enablers (technology)
- From internal platforms to ecosystem platforms (platform)
Some of this is already happening with new AI and deep-learning software being introduced but much more needs to be done. Look for new players in this market over the next 10 years.