Dorman Followwill, partner and director at Frost & Sullivan, highlighted six platforms of visionary innovation during the company’s GIL 2013 Latin America event in São Paulo:
- understand the growth environment by analyzing internal and external challenges
- conduct 360º industry research to come up with a roadmap
- maintain your vision and benchmark to learn how the best companies operate and make it better
- target unmet needs and market gaps by identifying white spaces
- focus on innovations and growth strategies instead of on products
- implement excellence
Followwill stressed that the journey to visionary innovation requires taking the “gold” team and putting them to work on creating something significantly innovative. “We believe that it is crucial for large utilities and big telecoms,” he said during a video interview with RCR Wireless News. To use innovation to differentiate themselves, carriers have to anticipate customers’ demands, according to Followwill. “What’s the next level of mobility?” he asked.
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Followwill also talked about companies’ level of innovation. He noted that in countries such as Brazil where there is optimism, innovation is more likely to happen than in countries where fear dominates.
To move innovation efforts from product to strategy is key, he said, noting that companies should put more efforts into the business strategy to achieve greater innovation. “A lot of innovation efforts do not achieve what they aimed for,” he said.