‘Innovation Exposed: how fear, inspiration and frustration shape success’ LinkedIn blog post copywriting, IFS. The IFS ‘Voice of Experience’ campaign on LinkedIn shares personal and provocative thinking from some of its most senior team. This blog post, developed working with the Vice President of IFS Labs, considers the challenges and mindset that drive successful innovation, carefully expressed in his personal tone of voice.
- COPY: Ian Castle, Freelance Copywriter
- CLIENT: IFS
‘Innovation Exposed’ thought leadership blog copy sample, IFS (US English)
[Excerpt]:
INNOVATION: A STRATEGY
Contrary to popular belief, very few organizations – with the rare exception of a radical start-up or the odd global tech giant – are true inventors. Even far-reaching operational shifts are rarely the result of inventing something completely new. Instead, they are the result of innovation: taking technology and ideas that were already there, and using insight and data to find different, creative ways to use them to impart greater business value, efficiency or improvement.
At IFS, our Labs team doesn’t invent technology. Instead, each day our focus is on creating new ways to use and seamlessly integrate the technology out there to provide smarter end-to-end processes, that multiple customers can use, whilst enjoying the best possible experience with our software.
[Excerpt]:
THREE CHALLENGES
The innovation journey is about taking an idea to do things better and turning it into a product or solution you can deliver that brings value. In my experience, there are three main challenges to the innovation process.
The first is triggered by an enforced, sudden external change – for instance a new start-up competitor, a new regulatory requirement, or even a major geopolitical event. For example, Ukraine is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, responsible for up to 46% of sunflower-seed and safflower oil production. The present crisis means food manufacturers reliant on sunflower oil in production must rapidly find ways to adapt – innovate - using other edible oil ingredients to stay in business. If you lack any new ideas or solutions you must fear for your existence.
The second hurdle is something I call ‘inspired fantasy’. Someone has created a great concept for business but faces several difficult technical challenges to make it reality. The idea sounds great…but how can the team make it happen?
The third hurdle is frustration. An exciting new capability or technology is available, but the ultimate business market for it is unclear. The challenge is to find a way to productize it, create a compelling business case for adoption and most importantly deliver value.