Beyond sparking ideas that boost revenue and customer satisfaction, innovation hubs can also spur their organizations' overall digital transformation — as long as the hub is established with clear and relevant goals in place.
Here, according to Gartner, are four ways a cohesive and strategically designed innovation hub can expand from merely serving as research and development centers for new ideas to driving digital transformation.
1. Scanning for trends: Trendspotting — and, similarly, identifying overhyped ideas and technologies — should be a dedicated task of the hub, resulting in a report for company leaders outlining new industry opportunities and threats, and their potential impact on the individual organization.
2. Bringing ideas to value: Not only should these hubs oversee the development and deployment of new innovations, but they should also measure the success of those innovations to demonstrate their impact and, in doing so, justify the hub's further funding.
3. Communicating to prepare the organization: With hubs often siloed off from the rest of the organization, it is imperative that they learn to adequately convey their operations to the entire company as projects incubated within the hub are integrated across the organization.
4. Liaising with third-party partners: Innovation hubs are uniquely positioned to form partnerships with outside parties offering their own new ideas and technology to accelerate innovation, and they should take advantage of these invaluable opportunities on their organizations' behalf.
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