Innovation Laboratory: what is it, how does it work? Understand!
Nowadays, innovation appears not to be a differentiating factor but a must-have for any company that aims to stand out in the competitive market in which we live. Bearing this thought in mind, an “Innovation Laboratory” shines as a strategic resolution for any business, regardless of its size.
But do you know what an innovation lab is and why it is helpful to a company? With the intention of answering this question, more common than it seems, we have developed this article.
You will understand what an innovation lab is, and how it may inspire digital transformation through this course. It will also explain to you the benefits of a solid corporate innovation culture in your business and much more. Read on and find out!
An Innovation Lab simply means a place for experimentation, creativity, and developing new ideas, processes, products, and services whose major objective is to introduce improvements into your business.
They act as a catalyst for ideas, in which multidisciplinary teams use agile methodologies and advanced technologies to transform ideas into reality.
These laboratories are important not only for the development of new products but also for the very competitiveness and growth of companies in today’s scenario; they foster a culture of innovation that can be continuous.
Activities developed within an Innovation Lab can be very diverse; examples include:
- Research and trend analysis;
- Development of new products and services;
- Improvement of internal processes;
- Promotion of a culture of innovation;
Moreover, this space, whether physical or virtual, has to be an environment where creativity can be fostered beyond bureaucracy and hierarchies, encouraging constant experimentation. Some activities which can be carried out in a Lab are:
- Brainstorming , to find new ideas;
- Design Thinking , to solve problems in a creative way;
- Prototyping , to test new ideas and understand what works and what doesn’t;
- Usability tests , carried out with the user, to obtain their feedback on what went well in the test and what went wrong;
Now, let’s understand a little about how an Innovation Laboratory works!
How does an innovation lab work?
The way an innovation lab works varies from company to company; in general, however, they followed some good practices. These are:
Innovation Culture
As we mentioned earlier, it should be an environment that is flexible and open to experimentation – free from red tape and a chain of command. The company should foster employee involvement and provide an environment that allows for mistakes to be tolerated so that people may learn from what went wrong and enhance what went right.
Multidisciplinary Teams
Innovation projects succeed where people from diverse fields and expertise are present. Your structure should bring in professionals from areas such as marketing, sales, technology, design, engineering, among others.
Innovation Process
Your structure needs to have a clear and defined process for developing innovation projects. This process may include steps such as:
- Problem identification: Definition of the problem that the project intends to solve.
- Research and analysis: Search for information and insights about the problem.
- Idea generation: Brainstorming and other techniques to generate innovative ideas.
- Idea selection: Evaluation of ideas and selection of the most promising ones.
- Prototype development: Creating prototypes to test ideas.
- Testing: Evaluation of prototypes with real users.
- Implementation: Implementation of the innovative solution in the company.
Tools and Resources
Tools and resources to develop innovation projects, like software, hardware, co-working places, etc, are also a requirement to be available in the lab. Otherwise, without an appropriate structure to sustain the creative process of its employees, the Lab turns out to not be so successful.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The control and evaluation of the performance of innovation projects enable understanding what works and what does not so that work in performance is always getting better to deliver more and more value for your company.
In the next topic, we are going to present the benefits of implementing an Innovation Lab in your company.
Advantages of an innovation laboratory for companies
Throughout the text, it is possible to see the relevance of innovation labs for organizations. Next, we will better understand the main advantages of implementing one of them in your business!
Increased competitiveness
Innovation enables firms to come up with unique products and services, thereby meeting emergent needs from their customers and ultimately staying ahead of the competition. You will always be competitive because you will keep updating yourself on what your consumer wants.
Process Improvement + Cost Reduction
As we said earlier, one of the Lab’s objectives is to seek innovative solutions to optimize company processes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
This allows for things like automating a manual and tiring process, so that your professionals may use their time to work on tasks of higher value for your business.
Besides improving the performance of your company, this type of action reduces costs since it maximizes the capacity of your employees and seeks new solutions to solve common problems, reducing operating costs of your business.
Innovation culture and attractiveness for talent
Furthermore, such an atmosphere will enhance the creativity and innovativeness of the staff, making them more open to change.
Importantly, the best talents would want to be part of an organization that can provide an environment that affords them space to innovate. Lab can become a significant differentiator in attracting and retaining such talents.
Increased customer satisfaction
This type of structure therefore gives a company the chance to develop products and services that more suit customer needs, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Opening new markets
Innovation can open new markets for a company by developing new products and services which will be sold in new markets.
Additionally, a Lab can help you foresee and head off problems that don’t yet exist and fulfill all of your business needs, breaking down barriers to be business-ready for market fluctuations!
