Peer-graded Assignment: Course Project
Choose a company using some IT solutions for business innovation and growth
Improve sales and customer relationships
Failing to improve your products and services can put you at risk of losing customers to more
innovative competitors.
If you invest time and money in innovation, customers will notice and appreciate the extra value
you’re bringing them. That should translate into more sales.
You can start with simple steps like regularly surveying customers to identify potential product
improvements and setting up an innovation team to spearhead your efforts.
Reduce waste and costs
Innovation can help you reduce waste in your business and leave you better positioned to focus
on the long-term goals, rather than always putting out fires.
Innovative BDC clients have implemented operational efficiency changes such as streamlining
order processing, eliminating production bottlenecks and reducing machinery and employee idle
time.
The goal is to constantly be on the lookout for ways to eliminate waste. That can bring a host of
benefits—lower costs, better profit margins, improved customer service and increased
competitiveness. An efficiency expert can help you identify such innovations.
Boost your market position
Innovation can help you anticipate market changes more quickly and get ahead of
opportunities, so you aren’t forced to react to shifts. It can also help you differentiate yourself
from the competition.
Such innovation can come from continuously analyzing market trends, listening to your
customers, suppliers and advisors, and studying what competitors are doing in order to spot
opportunities and jump on them.
Also, it’s often useful to look at what’s happening in your industry in other countries. You can
find fresh ideas for your business by studying what leading companies are doing abroad.
Improve employee relations
An innovative workplace is stimulating for employees. Cultivating pride in your products and a
desire for your company to be an industry leader should reduce workplace turnover and boost
productivity.
That can, in turn, lead to still more innovation success because employees are often a
company’s best source of ideas.
Be sure to listen to them. Ask for their feedback on innovation in all areas of your business,
including how to improve products, marketing and efficiency. They can give invaluable insights
into ways to innovate, and they will appreciate having your ear
What will this technology evolve in the future?
Technology has the power to do many things, and changing the world is one of them.
We're privileged to be living in a time where science and technology can assist us, make our
lives easier and rethink the ways we go about our daily lives.
The technology we're already exposed and accustomed to has paved the way for us to innovate
further, and this list of current and future technologies certainly have the potential to change our
lives even more.
Here's our list of technologies that will "probably" change our lives forever over the coming
decade and beyond:
Space Tourism
We can fly to virtually any country in the world without any trouble, but what if we could all one
day see the earth from space? Companies such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and even
Amazon's Blue Origin, want to make it a reality one day, and give us a (very expensive) seat
aboard a spaceship to take us into orbit. Passengers on Amazon's New Shepard space shuttle
will be taken 100km above sea level, before parachuting back to earth.
Colonization of other planets
We've been wreaking havoc on Earth for a long time and the planet can only put up with
mankind's destructive nature for so long.
If we don't destroy it, we'll one day outgrow it. Plans are in the works to colonies other planets
and Mars will no doubt be the first port of call. With leaps forward in technology, this vision of
the future is quickly becoming science-fact, rather than science-fiction.
Robots in space and in the workplace
NASA is already sending robots of different shapes and sizes into space. As technology
progresses, this makes sense. Robots don't need to worry about oxygen to breathe or food to
eat and they can be packed full of sensors to send data back to Earth.
The same applies in the workplace. Robots can take on the more difficult, dangerous and dull
jobs to save mankind the trouble and risk. They can also theoretically operate more quickly,
efficiently and with fewer mistakes too.
Electric/self-driving cars
Electric cars are nothing new; they've been on our roads for some time now and they're only
getting better.
Car batteries are lasting longer, the charging station infrastructure is growing, and self-driving
technology is being heavily invested in meaning it's coming sooner than you probably think.
Tesla already has a complex Autopilot mode that can take over some driving controls, but one
day car manufacturers hope to let us go completely hands-free.
