Learning to innovate and accelerate progress with Spark Engage

• In survey of over 200 firms, 90% expect Covid-19 to change how they do business
• Businesses must adopt innovative mindsets & technology for better efficiency, effectivity

2020 has been a year for new beginnings and renewals, albeit painful ones. With entire industries being up-ended in the past year, it is crucial for organisations to move forward instead of being stuck in old paradigms.

Timelines hastened

Smart companies have drawn up timelines for the future with milestones and goals clearly set. However, these safe, hypothetical markers have now been moved up.

Plans of moving to managed services went from ‘sometime in the future’ to a priority defined by circumstances and immediate needs.

Organisations must learn to be decisive in economic landscapes as fraught as these but to be able to make timely decisions, the key thing here is data.

Now, more than ever, information is power and organisations must learn to master the collection, interpretation and harnessing of important data.

Good data, however, does not guarantee good decisions; key stakeholders must also realise that data analysis and business intelligence are not just products of tools.

Data literacy should also be an organisation-wide skillset, and innovation needs to move in tandem with employee upskilling. As businesses acquire new technologies, so must the workforce acquire new skills.

Opportunity in crisis

One industry hit particularly hard by the pandemic is the airlines. Yet despite the bleak outlook, airlines are still looking to modernising their business and innovation.

In a global survey by the Fast Future, Future Travel Experience (FTE) and the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX), two-thirds of respondents (63.7%) said they expected to see the crisis accelerating innovation as well as digital transformation within their organisations.

Despite the pandemic, a fifth (19.2%) expected their organisation to move ahead with pre-coronavirus plans with a smaller percentage (17.1%) expecting their digital transformation projects to be delayed.

Examples of changes would be in increased automation, self-service as well as measures such as ‘touches’ biometrics.

Would these changes have been put in place without the looming threat of a pandemic? Perhaps. Yet it can’t be denied that Covid-19 accelerated the pace of adoption of new technology in the airline industry.

Beyond survivability, these developments show an airline industry prepared to evolve to meet current and future challenges.

Meeting customer needs the ultimate priority

In a McKinsey survey involving more than 200 organisations across industries, more than 90% surveyed said they expected Covid-19’s fallout to change the way they do business over the next five years at a fundamental level.

A large number of participants also felt that the crisis would have a lasting impact on their customers’ needs. Only 21%, however, felt they were properly equipped with the resources, expertise, and commitment to pursue new growth.

Still, more than three quarters felt that the crisis provided new opportunities for growth.

Refusing to innovate in an attempt to keep costs low would, however, be counterproductive. As customer spending patterns change, so must an organisation’s financial priorities.

Now is the time to cut away excess, relook into current investments and holdings, and see just how a business can better centre itself on meeting customer needs.

Being able to correctly gauge customer desires and priorities and evolving along with them will keep a business agile and effective.

Making a commitment to innovating will keep a company’s growth apace with global conditions as well as the shift in customer perspectives.

To gain more insight into what direction innovation needs to take in your company and how to accelerate that process, join leading voices from various industries in the upcoming Spark Engage forum, organised by Maxis Business. Click here to learn more.