The word innovation brings out the images of creativity, freedom and ideas generation. It facilitates individuals and workforce to be liberated with original thoughts, without any shackles and constraints. However, to convert ideas into products and service there needs to be the right set of discipline and process.

1. Capture Ideas to Create Innovative Products and Services
In today's challenging business environment organizations are struggling to gain global foothold by
using various methods to capture and nurture ideas that can help them solve problems, stimulate an
innovative environment and see them through the everyday challenges.
Understanding the positive effects of creating and developing innovative products, the top
management in enterprises today adopt various methods to capture ideas. Generating ideas can
however be from both external and internal sources. This would mean that idea generation process
can involve customers, employees, partners and others involved in the product development process.
Such a platform for idea capturing not only helps in generating enthusiasm in employees to search for
a solution but would also provide an enterprise with a repository of ideas.
The development of new technology based weather forecast system to precisely depict the snow level
as compared to adjacent districts and an Internet ready Shopping Mall enabling shoppers with a
realistic
3D demonstrations of products are some of the innovative products at IBM. However, the product
development brought with it the need for faster ways commercialize the product. The CEO at IBM
then depended on his 346,000 strong workforce to ‘think out-of-box’ through the idea “Jam” - a
massively parallel conference uniting the entire workforce across the geographical locations facilitating
IBM to capture more than 52,000 ideas.
Even when the Tata group of industries with a 117 year history, needed ideas for surviving the
turbulent global recession, the Chairman made every employee an innovator. This helped the
TATA’s to capture ideas that helped not only see through the recession but has resulted in the large
conglomerate with 15 enterprises under its umbrella with TCS alone contributing to an annual turnover
of around $6 billion.
To meet the growing need for idea inputs from the public, leading service providers have facilitated
enterprises with crowdsourcing software to help them to capture ideas. Such efforts provide the
enterprises with a platform that encourages participation of the people and brainstorming through

2. building communities. Following the footsteps of IBM and Tata, others such as Whirlpool, Starbucks,
Microsoft and Dell have also deployed idea management systems to tap the collective wisdom of
their employees and customers. Whirlpool collected and pooled large number of ideas through
crowdsourcing which made them richer by 7,500 ideas worth over US$3. 3B. All the ideas generated
are managed and covered under the larger umbrella of idea management solutions.
Every idea can be game changing, hence needs to be captured irrespective of it being small or large .
The social media have also changed the way the new generation of consumer interests. Thus the
social networking sites and the related professional sites are the effective zones to capture ideas.
Further, the ability to collaborate is a critical element in collecting ideas. Such efforts on the part of the
enterprise will facilitate new and viable products and services, enhancement of brand value and brand
loyalty and provide a highly competitive edge.
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