business skills

Process, product and service innovations harness a significant opportunity to positively affect our planet. Reworking ideas and existing technologies can improve sustainability, which may reduce pollution and help in the battle against climate change.

Our Managing Innovation course is ideal for entrepreneurs, supply chain managers, technical industry professionals, business managers and owners and product and service development managers. It will give you insights into creative thinking, prototyping, the different types of innovation and design, as well as how to navigate problems and risks.

In this managing innovation course, you will learn about innovation models, ways to improve creativity, how to balance creativity and critical thinking, the risks associated with innovation, and the significance of the innovation lifecycle. You will also study prototyping, pilot testing products, how to write a journey map, KPIs and tracking, implementation in the market and benefits realisation.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking a managing innovation course include:

• Learning about the scope and nature of innovation
• Exploring innovation versus improvement
• Gaining an understanding of why to innovate and the types of innovations
• Studying the adoption of innovations and models of innovation
• Examining the development of innovative products or services
• Understanding creative thinking and creativity and innovation
• Attaining knowledge of what makes employees creative
• Gaining insights into ways to improve creativity
• Learning about creative versus critical thinking
• Exploring design thinking and innovation
• Gaining an understanding of the design thinking process
• Studying association with innovation
• Examining the applications of design thinking
• Understanding the innovation process
• Attaining knowledge of continuing innovation
• Gaining insights into managing risk and risks associated with innovation
• Learning about scaling innovation and how to enhance employee innovation
• Exploring the innovative identification of risks and risk management
• Gaining an understanding of the types of innovation
• Studying the innovation matrix
• Examining the innovation lifecycle
• Understanding prototyping and the different types
• Attaining knowledge of product failures
• Gaining insights into how to write a journey map
• Learning about pilot testing and planning
• Exploring KPIs and tracking
• Gaining an understanding of rollout and bringing to market
• Studying benefit realisation

And more!

Tips to Improving Employee Innovation

As you will discover in our managing innovation course, innovative culture in a business can increase both staff retention and profitability. And although innovation is often associated with creating new services or products in a business, it can also be about changing the way your organisation does business.

Your business survival and competitiveness is directly linked to your ability to innovate. But to be successful, innovation needs to be supported by everyone in the business, including your staff, other business partners and of course, yourself!

Innovation embraces:

• New technologies and their uses
• Improved industry methods
• Meeting changing customer needs or demands
• Better systems and processes

The Benefits of Innovation

Creating an innovative business culture will ensure everyone in the business is working towards improving efficiency, performance and business practices. Your approach to innovation will be driven by your capability, market understanding, business strategy and commitment to the process. Often, these processes will add capacity to your business with little or no additional costs.

Some of the other benefits include:

• Increased competitiveness — innovation allows your business to offer higher quality products at a lower cost and more efficiently.
• Improved staff retention — staff typically like to work in jobs that promote problem-solving and teamwork.
• A proactive approach to business — your business is able to keep up with changes in your industry.
• More customers — innovation offers new or an improvement on existing services or products or allows you to enter new markets.
• More efficient use of all resources.

How to Create an Innovative Environment

You can help your employees become more productive by fostering a culture that encourages creative action and thinking in the workplace. This can inspire them to share skills, experience, recommendations and knowledge. Ways you can promote an innovative environment in your business include:

• Hiring people with different perspectives — This involves looking for employees who understand your vision, align with your culture, have different perspectives, come from diverse backgrounds, have passions and different abilities, and have a different approach or set of ideas in terms of problem-solving.
• Give employees the time and space to innovate — Set aside spaces for employees to share and create ideas, and be approachable and open to these. Many companies allocate time for employees to break from routine roles to inspire new thoughts and these include a day out of the office, allocated time during the day or an employee retreat.
• Encourage collaboration — Create work practices that encourage employees to work together and openly discuss ways to improve. These can include allow job swaps that foster new perspectives from employers, holding brainstorming sessions regarding process improvement with employees from different parts of the business, and introducing new ideas or “what if?” time to your regular meetings.
• Have a feedback process — Ensure there is a process that everyone understands for assessing new ideas. Employees should be encouraged to recommend or suggest ideas that will be appropriately considered. All suggestions should also be acknowledged in a timely manner and feedback should be given.
• Implement ideas ASAP — Employees’ suggestions and ideas should be put into effect as quickly as possible. When employees see they are influencing the direction of the business, they will be motivated to continue to share ideas, work towards their success of the idea and encourage the productivity of their colleagues.
• Reward employees for their ideas — Rewards can be used to encourage your employees to suggest ideas, even if they’re not carried out. This will help them see that you appreciate their efforts to improve the business.
• Offer training — Training can inspire new approaches to the business. Your employees will gain experience and the business will benefit from new ideas and approaches.
• Invest in resources — Innovation is an investment in the future of your business and having an innovative business will help you grow your business, increase profits, motivate your employees and keep up with customer demand and industry best practice.

2021’s Most Innovative International Companies

International companies are leveraging Australia’s talent, research and government support to boost productivity, growth and competitiveness. In fact, forty-eight out of Boston Consulting Group’s top 50 most innovative companies operate in Australia! Some of the trail blazers to inspire you to undertake our  managing innovation course include:

General Electric — Advanced Manufacturing

GE subsidiary GE Additive and the University of Sydney are establishing a high-tech manufacturing hub. The Sydney Manufacturing Hub will advance Australia’s capability in metal additive manufacturing technology, and train specialists and academics in advanced alloy design and its applications.

Bosch — Agricultural Technology

Bosch Australia and Monash University are co-developing Australia’s first smart agriculture research facility. It will contain a prototypical “smart farm” to test:

• Artificial intelligence
• Automation
• Robotic and advanced sensor technology solutions

Hyundai — Energy

Hyundai, CSIRO and Fortescue are working together to develop renewable hydrogen technology. The group seeks to:

• Develop new hydrogen technologies with the potential for bulk transport
• Build a renewable hydrogen refuelling facility, to deploy hydrogen fuel cell coaches
• Build the first combined hydrogen production and refuelling facility in Western Australia

Johnson & Johnson — Healthcare

The Johnson & Johnson Innovation Partnering Office @ Monash is a hub for researchers and early-stage companies. The facility allows them to develop novel medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare solutions.

Amazon Web Services and Intel — Technology

Amazon Web Services, AARNET and Intel have established Australia’s first cloud supercomputing facility. Based at RMIT University, the facility focuses on advanced data processing and computing.

 

Gain the confidence to innovate in your business or industry in order to release new products or services that benefit both individuals and the planet with a managing innovation course such as our Managing Innovation course.