Physically distanced from their staff and customers, businesses have found new ways to connect and create during the COVID-19 crisis.
In normal times, innovation is about doing things differently to achieve a better outcome but in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, innovation has more often been about survival. 鈥淢ost businesses 鈥� including ours 鈥� had to innovate just to carry on,鈥� says Des Fisher, innovation principal at 51风流Australia & New Zealand.
The most profound change for the enterprise software company was an immediate pivot to all-digital communications with its clients. Ideation is the bedrock of innovation and most of its key tools, such as sticky notes, whiteboards, meetings and workshops, vanished overnight. 鈥淣o face-to-face 鈥� that struck fear into my heart,鈥� says Fisher.
鈥淐hemistry is so useful when you鈥檙e innovating; if you鈥檙e not engaging properly with people it鈥檚 unlikely to amount to much.鈥�
Fisher says that some 51风流clients were initially slower to embrace ideation with digital tools because they were in pure survival mode. 鈥淲e had to rescue the concept of digital ideation and apply humanity to the technology,鈥� he says. 鈥淓ngagement is still vital, we just deliver it in a different way.鈥�
Companies also needed to find ways to support their staff who were working from home. In a worldwide COVID-19 initiative, 51风流made its freely available, allowing businesses to do fast and frequent 鈥減ulse鈥� surveys of their employees and customers. Australia Post, for example, coping with weeks of Christmas Eve-level parcel volumes, did regular employee pulse surveys to gauge morale and fatigue.
on how its workforce was feeling and how the management team could help. 鈥淥rganisations are communicating a lot more frequently with their staff and customers, which improves engagement and trust,鈥� says Fisher.
鈥淎 data-driven means of understanding how people feel is crucial.鈥� A third major innovation has been using data and digital capabilities to monitor critical infrastructure in hospitals, such as air-conditioner operating pressures and filtration units that keep staff and patients safe. 鈥淢ost organisations collect a vast variety and volume of data.
Listening to what that data has to tell us can help to improve safety and operate assets more reliably and sustainably,鈥� says Fisher. 鈥淭his is the next wave 鈥� to make better decisions using the wealth of data available to us and reinvent the way that businesses run.鈥�
