Tech Trends 2020

INCUBATE NEW PRODUCTS, SOLUTIONS, SERVICES, AND BUSINESS MODELS

When the experiment’s value proposition meets the expectations set forth in your business case, then you can consider more substantial investment by moving into incubation, where you foster the growth of technology-driven products, solutions, services, and even new business models.

• Dedicated team. Some companies have established innovation centers that are separate from the core business and staffed with dedicated talent. These formal initiatives typically have incubation and scaling expertise. They may also have the capacity to carry out the level of enhancement, testing, and hardening needed before putting your innovation into production.
• Turtle or hare? Be cautious about moving too quickly from incubation to full production. Even with a solid business case and encouraging experiments with containable circumstances and uses, at this stage your new innovation is not proven out at scale. You will likely need an incubator that has full scaling abilities to carry out the level of enhancement, testing, and fixes needed before putting your new idea out into the world at full force.
  

Bottom Line

Some think of technology innovation as nothing more than eureka! moments. While there is an element of that, harnessing advanced technology to create new opportunities is more about programmatic, disciplined effort, carried out over time, than it is about inspiration. Organizations should consider how to establish a program that can effectively identify, evaluate, and incubate these future macro technology forces to transform their enterprises, agencies, and organizations—before they themselves are disrupted. In a world of seemingly infinite unknowns, it is possible to focus attention on a meaningful collection of known technologies that, taken together, can help you chart a path to the next horizon.