Opinion: Innovation is in need of better platforms to support its growth

By Frederick Bravey, business development manager, SVV

Innovation is adapting faster with no signs of slowing down. In this fast-paced environment, innovation is in need of better platforms to support its growth. Corporations today are facing extensive challenges in getting new innovative ideas to market.

​According to ​Harvard Business School​ ​professor​ ​Clayton Christensen​, ​there are over 30,000 new products introduced every year, and 95 percent fail​, ​resulting in huge amounts of time wasted on failed concepts.

However, corporations are now looking toward new ways to greatly reduce their lead time as well as expanding their horizons beyond their current business models.

What does the future look like?

We have moved across the threshold of ‘things’ and began exploring the new world of IoT (Internet of Things) using new systems to collect and use data to control certain environments or products corporations are producing today. What does this type of development mean?

Numerous organizations haven’t harnessed the combination of both software and hardware, struggling to find the right balance between the two, however, it doesn’t go without saying that successful products today need to pay a great amount of attention to both.

According to KPMG’s 2019 ​US CEO Outlook​, 73 percent of CEOs are actively disrupting the sectors they operate in.

With this in mind, if corporate innovation wants to move forward and continue growing, exploring, and breaking into new markets, then there must be a platform formed which specializes in the hardware development side as well as the software side.

Innovation needs flexibility and room to be market-tested and validated.

Is there a platform already designed to support this? Yes, there is.

Through a collaboration between ​SVV​ and ​Capgemini​, this type of platform exists and has proven to overcome many challenges corporates have been facing.

Capgemini is known for its extensive knowledge in back-end IT and cloud services, and in parallel SVV has extensive knowledge in hardware development and manufacturing, forming the perfect intersection between software and hardware.

Currently, Capgemini’s fully integrated ecosystem in IT services has always been restricted to just software-oriented development.

Capgemini’s ​Applied Innovation Exchange​ (AIE) program was formed to assist corporations in the aforementioned, helping them find new markets and products to fit those markets, through a simple four-step process they’ve labeled “Discover, Device, Deploy and Sustain”.

SVV has developed a complete end-to-end engineering and manufacturing platform, specializing in B2B complex medical, agriculture, and AI integrated IoT devices, with the added value that their manufacturing capabilities can also sustain small-batch production, making it perfect for corporates to pilot-test new products, and enter the Chinese market.

What’s so important about the Greater Bay Area?

This new platform is situated in the center of the hardware hub of the world and branded the “Silicon Valley of the East” – Shenzhen.

The Greater Bay Area has attracted hundreds of fortune 500 companies looking to utilize the local ecosystem to greatly accelerate their innovation activities.

New products and devices can be built and deployed in months, not years, due to the GBA’s infrastructure and sheer talent pool.

By opening the doors to this new platform, Capgemini’s clients can easily benefit more through having complete control over the development process of both the hardware and software, along with the added advantage of using this platform as a pilot-testing powerhouse to enter new markets.

On the other hand, both Capgemini and SVV are fully embedded in the GBA’s ecosystem, meaning, through working with the Shenzhen AIE, corporates will have the full power of the unique region’s strengths.

If corporations truly are trying to outpace their competitors, then platforms such as SVV’s and Capgemini’s AIE services are the key to utilizing ecosystems like the GBA, and unlocking the full potential which accelerates corporations into new markets.

To sum up, a new emerging, much-needed, platform has been formed paving the way for corporations to innovate, test, and deploy new products and services into new and existing markets at a breakneck pace.

Main image, showing the Greater Bay Area of Shenzhen, China, courtesy of South China Morning Post