| | September 20169CIOReviewcompetitive in a rapidly changing economy. It provides exposure to start-ups, provides opportunity to engage with them and stay close to upcoming trends and innovation. The exposure through the accelerator often provides an opportunity to close deals for the venture capital arm.Many companies hold com-petitions inviting start-ups to address specific business chal-lenges or technology needs. This encourages innovative solution to be industry tested.Students' engagement programsFew companies use programs that encourage students to put their heads together and work on big ideas that are of value to business by creating engagement platform for students from management and engineering colleges. Students are invited to propose new technology solutions that could positively and measurably impact businesses. This works as a mutually beneficial initiative as the students benefit through industry exposure and reward structure and the company benefits by solving business problems through innovative ideas and solutions. Internal innovation platformThe concept of crowd sourcing of ideas from within the company as well as customers and partners is gaining ground. This can be done by using Innovation manage-ment platform/ portal that facili-tates capturing of ideas which goes through a funnel, idea assessment that can be done through collabo-rative communication & social net-working and idea status tracking. There is a great deal of value to be drawn from collective wisdom. Many companies are using crowd sourcing to rapidly drive innova-tion, improve products, bring effi-ciency, cost reduction and increase customer satisfaction.There can be deluge of ideas that need to be sifted through to arrive at meaningful and relevant ideas. There are several open innovation platforms that can be leveraged effectively to manage the innovation ideas and pipeline. One needs to also have analytics in place to benefit from the information collected. Introduction of gamification can incentivise and help unlock the collaboration potential.Rewarding InnovationCompanies viewing employees as a major source of innovation need to build mechanism to encourage the innovation culture. Rewarding and recognising innovation helps sustain and grow innovation. The key is to figure out how you encourage employees to come of their business as usual and comfort zone to generate creative ideas. Employees need to believe that their ideas matter and that something will be done out of an idea that is feasible and provides value.It is important to consistently acknowledge those who contribute ideas, knowledge, and time. Organi-sation should disseminate success stories concerning invention of a successful new product or approach so as inspire that behaviour. It is ob-served that innovation becomes self-rewarding because being perceived as an expert by peers and manage-ment matters.Forward looking organisations expect CIOs to play the role of Chief Innovation officers. In order for an organisation to be truly cutting edge, everyone in the company should be encouraged to innovate. Innovation is far too important to be left to few people. CIO is best suited to play the role of a catalyst and change agent by providing enablement to a larger team to participate in the innovation journey and build a sustaining culture of innovation. Many companies hold competitions inviting start-ups to address specific business challenges or technology needs
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