When most people think of innovation, they imagine unbridled creativity and thrilling brainstorming sessions with lots of coffee and a whiteboard.<\/p>\n
At Centric, our innovation initiative<\/a> certainly has those aspects at times. But we have come to respect innovation as an evolving focus area focused on building novel ideas around evidence-based objectives. The idea of \u201cevidence-based objectives\u201d is key because the projects our Innovation Advisory Team approves and our Virtual Innovation Lab develops must share one element: providing measurable value to organizations.<\/strong><\/p>\n However, while targeted value is a key ingredient of our overall innovation mindset, we know there are many ways to get there. We also want to provide our team members the chance to do new things, have fun with their work and provide opportunities for ideation as the start of innovation. So, when we began working with our Technology Service Line<\/a>, the goal was simply to \u201cbuild\u201d without worrying about business cases.<\/p>\n Over time, we have realized innovation is a process we can orchestrate and coach others through. Initially, people immersed in a particular process, such as billing, are not prone to change the way they do business overnight. They can get stuck in \u201charvesting mode,\u201d where they do the same things they\u2019ve always done and in the same way. But by providing them with a step-by-step method for innovation, leaders can encourage employees to break out of harvest mode, start to think differently about their work and look for opportunities to change.<\/p>\n When we consider the importance of innovation, we think about steel towns in the 1970s. The communities that did not innovate got left behind, with drastic impacts on residents and regional economies. Unfortunately, we see many sectors facing similar crises today.<\/p>\n To help the industries we serve survive \u2014 whether insurance<\/a>, healthcare<\/a>, financial services<\/a>, energy and utilities<\/a> or the public sector<\/a> \u2014 we now focus our innovation investments at the intersection of the solutions our service offerings provide and clients\u2019 real-world needs.<\/strong> That means prioritizing ideas and driving toward proof of value, not just proof of concept.<\/p>\n But how do you prioritize when Innovator X has Pet Project Y and Innovator A has Pet Project B? To say nothing of the competing pressures from outside the company to solve immediate problems.<\/p>\nInnovation at the Intersection of Solutions and Needs<\/h2>\n