Using crowdsourcing to facilitate innovation

It is no secret to anyone that technical innovation has not advanced recently. Contrary to popular belief, technological breakthroughs are not necessarily the result of the work of a couple of crazy geniuses, but rather changes have been brought about by those few who have access to resources and platforms. The truth is that most innovations occur thanks to the implication of individuals and small groups. Large organizations depend on a small team of individuals to solve a particular problem. Most of the time, the ideas that they come up with actually lead to business growth. But what if the organization were to bring the best people together? The outcome would be business creation and modernization. The latest strategy for innovation is represented by crowdsourcing. It seems that the way people communicate has had a great impact on both innovation, reason why the crowd is slowly becoming the number one choice for businesses.

Crowdsourcing basically means that a company or an institution takes the function that was once reserved exclusively for employees and distributes it to a network of people. Innovationsmanagement is possible thanks to certain tools that are able to collect the ideas of customers, employees or partners. As new as the idea may sound, it is actually not. The fact is that the practice of crowdsourcing has been used for centuries. The reason why crowdsourcing is more popular now than in the past is that the Internet has facilitated interactions between people. The Internet allows one to communicate with people coming from different cultural or economic backgrounds and drive innovation. However, managers tend to be cautious when it comes to resorting to this type of Ideenmanagement because sometimes it can be risky to leave the process of problem solving to a group of strangers. Probably the main fear is that they will lose their intellectual property. On the other hand, companies who are reluctant to refuse crowdsourcing are actually losing an important opportunity. The interaction of companies with crows has proven to be successful over the years. Regardless of the area, crowds will definitely outperform any internal organization.

Although some companies refuse to use crowdsourcing to drive innovation, the number of those who do is increasing. Crowdsourcing can be used for various purposes, such as creating a new application or for gathering feedback. Being able to collect amounts of data from customers and employees is crucial for efficient problem solving and saving costs. A good crowdsourcing software will not compromise the reputation of the company and the ideas can be later on presented to shareholders in the process. The more data that is collected, the more returns on the investment. Whether they realize it or not, every business uses the crowd in a way or the other. Even if companies may refuse to acknowledge the advantages of consulting a network of people, the competition does and this will have a great impact on the revenues of the business. Co-coordinating the efforts of the masses can offer something different for a business and it might be the smart solution to solving problems.

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