Retain Customers with Idea Management System

The modern day business scenario is characterized by fierce competition, advanced and changing technologies and demanding consumers. These are some of the factors that have made innovation a crucial aspect for most companies. In today’s world, where knowledge is accessible and widespread,enterprises still cannot completely rely only on their own research. Organizations are gradually coming to terms with this fact that irrespective of the company size certain creative inputs and predictive insights can be found outside the enterprise’s physical boundaries. Hence, most companies are willing to involve external parties in their innovation practices. This process is termed as open innovation.

In the recent past, crowdsourcing has been a popular medium for open innovation. It has been used not only to give shape to critical projects efficiently but also to arrive at solutions that otherwise seemed impossible. The process has immensely influenced the business scenario since its inception in 2006, when the term was coined first by Jeff Howe in Wired Magazine. The process entails in presenting an agenda to the mass at large and encouraging them to contribute with their suggestions, ideas and inputs.

Recently, Nivea, Germany the multinational skincare cosmetic brand utilized the crowdsourcing technique for new product development. For this the brand wanted to make use of consumer insights beyond generic market research. Going forward, the brand effectively monitored hundred of social media websites in various languages in order to understand the crowd feedback on deodorants and their utilities. With the help of this social intelligence and actionable insights the brand introduced Nivea’s Invisible for Black and White, a revolutionary deodorant eradicating stain issues and is available now in the retail outlets today.

Crowdsourcing can be efficiently used as a medium of idea capture of idea management when backed by rewards and incentives. Dove, the leading name in women’s skin care and personal care products did something similar in order to promote its products. The brand asserts that women using Dove moisturizing soap can notice a remarkable difference in their skin tone in terms of evenness and radiance. The company announced an open competition where women using Dove soap can upload their pictures on the company website and can win a chance to become the next Dove face. The objective here is to enhance sales and induce the a “feel good factor” of being the face of a leading personal care brand.

Most enterprises are reaping in the positive impacts of crowdsourcing. However, the process has been under the scanner for the few who view it in a sceptical manner. The ones that have been constantly harnessing the power of open innovation, ideation and crowdsourcing have realized that they can tap into the vast talent pool and can attain their objectives within a set-time, budget and in a creative way. The success to open innovation however is in the fact that everyone irrespective of their background is capable of “out of the box” thinking.

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