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http://www.innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/21-great-ways-to-innovate/
# Copy someone else’s idea. One of the best ways to innovate is to pinch an idea that works elsewhere and apply it in your business. Henry Ford saw the production line working in a meat packing plant and then applied to the automobile industry thereby dramatically reducing assembly times and costs.# Ask customers. If you simply ask your customers how you could improve your product or service they will give you plenty of ideas for incremental innovations. Typically they will ask for new features or that you make your product cheaper, faster, easier to use, available in different styles and colours etc. Listen to these requests carefully and choose the ones that will really pay back.# Observe customers. Do not just ask them, watch them. Try to see how customers use your products. Do they use them in new ways? This was what Levi Strauss saw when they found that customers ripped the jeans – so they brought a line of pre-ripped jeans. Heinz noticed that people stored their sauce jars upside down so they designed an upside down bottle.# Use difficulties and complaints. If customers have difficulties with any aspect of using your product or if they register complaints then you have a strong starting point for innovations. Make your product easier to use, eliminate the current inconveniences and introduce improvements that overcome the complaints.# Combine. Combine your product with something else to make something new. It works at all levels. Think of a suitcase with wheels, or a mobile phone with a camera or a flight with a massage.# Eliminate. What could you take out of your product or service to make it better? Dell eliminated the computer store, Amazon eliminated the bookstore, the Sony Walkman eliminated speakers and record functions.# Ask your staff. Challenge the people who work in the business to find new and better ways to do things and new and better ways to please customers. They are close to the action and can see opportunities for innovation. Often they just need encouragement to bring forward great ideas.# Plan. Include targets for new products and services in your business plan. Put it onto the balanced scorecard. Write innovation into everyone’s objectives. Measure it and it will happen.# Run brainstorms. Have regular brainstorm meetings where you generate a large quantity of new product ideas. Use diverse groups from different areas of the business and include a provocative outsider e.g. a customer or supplier.# Examine patents. Check through patents that apply in your field. Are there some that you could license? Are some expiring so that you can now use that method? Is there a different way of achieving the essential idea in a patent?# Collaborate. Work with another company who can take you to places you can’t go. Choose a partner with a similar philosophy but different skills. That is what Mercedes did with Swatch when they came up with the Smart car.# Minimize or maximize. Take something that is standard in the industry and minimise or maximise it. Ryanair minimized price and customer service. Starbucks maximised price and customer experience. It is better to be different than to be better.# Run a contest. Ask members of the public to suggest great new product ideas. Offer a prize. Give people a clear focussed goal and they will surprise you with novel ideas. Good for innovation and PR.# Ask – what if? Do some lateral thinking by asking what if…..? Challenge every boundary and assumption that applies in your field. You and your group will come up with amazing ideas once the normal constraints are lifted.# Watch the competition. Do not slavishly follow the competition but watch them intelligently. The small guys are often the most innovative so see if you can adapt or license one of their ideas – or even buy the company!# Outsource. Subcontract your new product development challenge to a design company, a University, a start-up or a crowdsourcing site like ive or NineSigma.# Use open innovation. Big consumer products companies like Proctor and Gamble or Reckitt Benckiser encourage developers to bring novel products to them. They are flexible on IP protection and give a clear focus on what they are looking for. A large proportion of their new products now start life outside the company.# Adapt a product to a new use. Find an entirely different application for an existing product. De Beers produced industrial diamonds but found a new use for diamonds when they introduced the concept of engagement rings. It opened up a large new market for them.# Try Triz. Triz is a systematic method for solving problems. It can be applied in many fields but is particularly useful in engineering and product design[https://en. Triz gives you a toolbox of methods to solve contradictions ewikipedia.g. how can we make this product run faster but with less power?org/wiki/TRIZ TRIZ on Wikipedia]# Go back in time. Look back at methods and services that were used in your sector years ago but have now fallen out of use. Can you bring one back in a new updated form? It has been said that Speed Dating is really a relaunch of a Victorian dance format where ladies had cards marked with appointments.# Use social networks. Follow trends and ask questions on groups like Twitter or Facebook. Ask what people want to see in future products or what the big new idea will be. Many early adopters are active on social network groups and will happily respond with suggestions.
== Process ==
It is possible to build an outbound campaign from an Excel spreadsheet of data in seconds. One observer of the system stated, "what I waited for 2 weeks for my IT department not to do, I accomplished in 11 seconds on your system." [[Form_-_Create_from_Excel]]
In 2010 the volcano in Iceland erupted. A government department using bxp was able to modify the system at 09:00 when its lines opened. By 18:00 that evening live statistics were delivered to a national newscaster to be able to report on the disruption it had caused to travel plans. The system was modified by a Team Leader with permission and the reports were generated in real time. [[Form_Add_Answer_Values]]
One organisation who operated such secure systems practices that staff were required to use paper to manage leads, was able to completely remove paper from their operation and as a result had operational reporting and ability to work as a team. [[Scenario_-_bxp_and_managing_work]]
All companies have a legal (data protection) requirement not to harass customers. Managing that across many campaigns, often for diverse campaign reasons, led to difficult data warehouse solutions and complicated cleaning processes. bxp created person-centric design and the challenging area was instantly cleaned up. [[Scenario_-_bxp_and_Person-centric_design]]
A dentist practice in Holland requested that their agents be able to fill in appointments, into time slots which the Dentists managed themselves. So a dentist set up the time slots they were available and agents could fill into only the slots that were flagged as free. The Appointment Diary module was created [[Module_-_Appointment_Management]]
== Communications ==
A financial institution wanted to convert cold outbound leads into interested warm inbound leads. Applying a scheduled communication to the customer at a specific time interval before their contract was due to expire, triggered an inbound contact from the customer. The customers were happy to be reminded and the sales conversions exceeded 50% per contact. [[Scenario_-_bxp_for_the_Financial_Sector#Role:_Scheduled_marketing_tool]]
Communicating "next step" acctions on a support phone line is usually a matter of a lot of memorisation. For new agents to follow process steps can be daunting. LogicFlow provides consistent, step by step for new and experienced users alike and communicating to all the business process the organisation wants followed. [[Module_-_LogicFlow]]
Modern email system provide email tracking on open rates and dispaly rates. bxp incorporates those capaiblities but extends on them by directly integrating with call centre operations so that when a user clicks a link in an email an agent in the call centre can be lined up to call them immediately. [[Communications_-_Email_Clickthru]] [[Scenario_-_bxp_API_-_Call_Me_worked_example]]
== People ==
The Help Me engine of bxp combined with the Suggestion Box [[The_I_Want_To_bar]] and the "Did you know" bar [[Did_You_Know]] were all designed to allow staff to provide feedback. That feedback has allowed our clients improve but also allows the developers to see instantly where an issue or good idea may be applied. The can do attitude of the All n One team has seen people suggestions become some of the best solutions availble in bxp.
One team leader asked could the items in the Information Centre be tracked so she could see which team members had actually read the messages. Confirmed Read messages were born. [[Information_Centre_-_Read_Confirmation]]
One client asked would it be possible to combine data from four separate sources from four different systems into a single source with a single output thus saving four full time team members reporting time. From this MetaData was created which saves hundreds of person hours through automation and centralisation of data. [[MetaData_-_Overview]]
Gamification is an overused and frequently misunderstood term. Gamification should be used to modify behaviour. Understanding the psychology and the proper application of Gamification is essential to make benefit of the approach. All n One not only understand and support the programs to our clients, the bxp Gamification module enbales these principles to be easily implemented. [[Scenario_-_bxp_for_Gamification]]
When working on phone calls, call centres can turn to the phone system to get reports of how long work is taking. bxp introduced activity time. Now times for emails, post and calls could be recorded and compared with no extra work required on the part of the user. [[Case_Activity_Reporting]] One bxp client wanted to be able to visualise where lapsed customers were to begin door to door campaigns. They hadn't the budget for a costly geo planning tool. Instead by running the addresses of the customers through Google's Geo API and visualising the results on Google Map the same effect was achieved with a tiny expenditure. [[Google_LatLong_Translation]] bxp comes with a wide variety of canned reports [[Data_Profiling_-_Report_Gallery]]. However when creating a Management Information System (MIS) or Executive Information System (EIS) customised reporting is needed. KeyStats allows for Excel type reports to be built but with live data feeding them. [[Module_-_KeyStats]] Add into the mix the capability to completely customise the visualisation of the reports using the customisability of FusionCharts and effective Information becomes a reality. [[FusionCharts]]. KeyStats is a solution is so effective we rely on it to run our internal Technical Operations Centre. Quality is an ill defined term for all organisations. All n One not only refined the term but also built a tool that can be universally applied to any process to deliver Quality Control. [[Scenario_-_bxp_to_create_Quality_Assurance_programs]] The output of the quality has many innovations in it with the biggest being SMARTER plans. SMARTER plans are self generating training plans, customised by person, based on the questions they get wrong in the QC assessments. [[QA_-_SMARTER_plans]] == Market Research Enabling technology == A field sales company needed to be able to perform data entry in areas where there was no internet converage. Off line forms were created to facilitate them. [[Using_Forms_Offline]] bxp is flexible enough to be used for prototyping ideas and sandboxing concepts. An old AS400 solution was the primary data source for a large telecommunications organisation. Through the export of one structured report on a scheduled basis, bxp became the wrapper and within days a solution that was confined to head office was securely and instantly availble to all staff located in over 70 field stores nationwide. [[Scenario_-_bxp_as_a_System_Wrapper]] A client asked would it be possible to have a till without having to buy a till. Integration with Realex realise their request. [[Realex_Outcomes]] Error management is part of any computer system. bxp take support to a completely different level through innovation. We trap every possible error that can be experience and we enumerate them. Through social engineering we remove the fear of errors and return them to what they are ... i.e. notifications. The All n One team are notified in real time of every notification from the system. We can tell which user, at which IP address in which module doing which function and working on which record is experiencing a notification. We can then ring in real time to assist the user and help them address their challenge. [[Meet_the_Hamsters]] bxp modules interoperate. The systems integrations hooks allow any amount of external sources to be integrated into bxp including Active Directory, numerous API end points and a variety of other data sources. The bxp API allows bxp to be a "secure database in it's own private dcloud." bxp integrates more and more the Internet of Things (IoT) and hides the complexity of inter-system operation. [[bxp API]] bxp even has a dedicated API for mobile app developers. [[Bxp_API_-_APP_API]]
== Complimentary Growth ==
All n One's directors and team have a wealth of experience in planning, building and delivering call centre infrastructure and business process outsourcing operations. [[Meet_the_Team]] So much so that bxp was used in alpha and beta testing on All n One's own call centre clients for the first three years of its operation. [[About_All_n_One]] The solutions we have created have been award winning. [[Release_History#Award_History]] When it was fit for market it was launched. That growth and real world experience helps All n One to help its clients grow with the confidence in knowing real world answers are coming from people who have experienced the same challenges. [[Scenario_-_bxp_for_Process_Owners_and_BPO_management]]
bxp is constantly innovating and evolving. Our latest updates reflects just how quickly our solution changes and the continual process of improvement employed by us and our clients. [[Latest_Updates]]
= Next steps =
So why not give us a call and let us innovate with you. Give Nick a shout on +353 1 429 4000 or email us at ideas@bxpsoftware.com