5 Forces of Innovation

5 Forces of Innovation

Innovation is continuing as the most important component to businesses’ success and relevance in the market. Innovation allows for adaptability, growth, and competitive advantage. When considering technological advancements, innovating and iterating allows for the releases of better products that can keep up with the market. At Iterate.ai, we know that we are the world’s simplest, safest, and quickest way to get innovation done. Let’s look at five forces of innovation, and how we have problem-solved for major organizations using innovation as the core of our work.

IoT

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is an expansive network of web-enabled smart devices around the world. This ecosystem is connected to the internet and makes use of embedded systems like sensors, processors, and communication hardware to collect and share data. These devices range from everyday household objects to complex industrial tools, like smart microwaves, fitness devices, and self-driving cars. There were over 10 billion IoT devices connected in 2021, and this number is expected to grow to 25.4 billion by  2030. IoT truly has become one of the most important technologies of the 21^st century to drive innovation. From wearable IoT medical devices and the smart home industry, to cutting edge smart cities, the possibilities of IoT driving innovation for futures to come is vast. 

Our low-code platform, Interplay®, has transformed IoT technologies to provide innovative solutions for various companies. Using Interplay, we were able to support a major retailer’s need for counting every individual entering their store, including babies and children, with the use of IoT in the form of a heat map. Knowing how many people, families especially, are entering a store and lingering around certain aisles can provide essential marketing and sales data for retailers to improve merchandising. Interplay is able to connect to existing closed-circuit video platforms to provide this IoT-driven service to retail and office environments.

AI and ML

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is an amalgamation of several technologies working together, enabling systems or machines to mimic human-like intelligence for performing tasks, such as sensing, comprehending, and learning, and iteratively transforming themselves based on the information collected. AI is an umbrella term, and at its core, AI is all about self-improvement and replication, learning each time it’s being used in order to enhance human capabilities, not replace them.

Machine Learning (ML) is a branch of AI that focuses on the use of data and algorithms that will help machines imitate the way humans learn. Because of ML, AI applications are able to learn from data and its subsequent results in almost real-time and analyze new information from numerous sources so as to adapt accordingly. With the right application, AI and ML have the power to make massive transformations on a global scale.

Technologies like AI and ML have innovated human efforts in every field ranging from enterprise development to healthcare. AI helps businesses with efficiency and scalability by providing rich analytics and pattern prediction capabilities. This allows businesses to make more accurate and timely decisions regarding new products, services for customers, and internal business models. Using Interplay, we leverage AI to optimize sales revenue and discounting within a supermarket or other retail environments. With our low-code platform, we are able to provide retail businesses with crucial patterns in customer purchasing in order to best inform merchandising practices. Also, the medical field has immensely benefited from this technology, especially since  the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Innovations in medical robotics, for example, have helped take the burden off of healthcare workers’ shoulders by providing AI-powered telehealth, recording patients’ vitals, and recommending diagnoses. AI not only transforms how medical staff treat patients, but also how individuals take control of their own health. For example, using Interplay, we created an application that takes someone’s basic health information (e.g. age, sex, blood pressure, etc.) and predicts their risk of suffering a heart attack. Our ML-driven application is also currently able to connect to messaging platforms like twilio and chatbots. This is especially relevant as health tracking on smartphones is becoming more common.

Startup APIs

At Interate.ai, we know that startups are incredibly valuable to the business world because they break the mold in order to fix problems by coming up with innovative solutions. The pandemic has shown the world that conventional businesses are prone to high instability and volatility while startups have acted as the guiding force when it comes to developing unique solutions. Being small companies, as opposed to giant conglomerates, startups provide innovations and services more relevant to global requirements.

An Application Programming Interface, API, is an intermediary software that allows communication between applications. Many startups have their own APIs that will deliver its main value proposition, or facilitate a specific data exchange. Interplay can connect to a myriad of startup APIs in order to offer innovative solutions to businesses. As well, we are able to seek out and recommend the most relevant and successful startup APIs for your business needs. For example, we have helped prominent retailer, Jockey, understand the overall benefits of SMS as a channel and recommended a handful of leading startups thriving in this area. Specifically, we suggested Attentive’s APIs as the leading solution in order to create a customized launch plan that worked best for the timing and integration needs of Jockey. Similarly, we delivered a strategic startup recommendation for a prestigious retailer to tackle the following issues: a large number of third-party technologies and services, a lack of visibility into the third-party performances, slow page load times, and large image files. After reviewing several dozen startups in this technology space and performing both technical and business evaluations, Yottaa’s APIs were recommended to speed up the site and allow its development team to put their team’s focus elsewhere.  

Blockchain

Best known for its massive role in cryptocurrency systems, blockchain technology is a decentralized, distributed ledger that records the provenance of digital assets. The blockchain is inherently designed to make it impossible to modify, guaranteeing security of recorded data; thus, generating trust without the need of a third party., 

Blockchain is made up of three main components – blocks, miners, and nodes. Blocks are groups that hold information collected that form a chain of data, while miners create new blocks to add to the blockchain using special and complex software. Nodes include any electronic device that maintains the copies of the blockchain and the functioning of the network. The goal of any blockchain is to ensure that the digital information is only recorded and distributed, and not altered, deleted, or destroyed in any way. This makes it ideal for business applications by lowering the “cost of trust” and providing immediate, shared, and, completely transparent information in a ledger that can be accessed only by network members with permission.

Blockchain can be implemented to create more scalable, efficient, and innovative business solutions. Within the supply chain management industry specifically, blockchain technology can be used to track items at every stage. Supply chain blockchains “tokenize” various transaction-related data, reducing the potential for errors along the way. This also allows supply chains to create unique verifiable identifiers for purchase orders, inventory units, etc. At Interplay, we highly recommend using blockchain technology for any supply chain transactions because we are confident in its security, traceability, and reduced costs, to name a few. 

Big Data

Big Data is a term used to describe the gathering, analysis, and utilization of massive amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information that has been mined to improve business operations. It is often characterized by the volume of data collected, the variety of data types, and the velocity with which the data is generated, collected, and processed.

Worldwide data creation is expected to grow to 163 zettabytes by 2025. Thus, the ability to analyze and interpret Big Data and make informed business decisions is imperative for the success of any organization. With market competitiveness on the rise, it is vital that organizations secure the ability to make quick and increasingly complex decisions to cater to changing customer demands in varying market conditions.

Big Data’s tools and technologies help gain actionable insights from the collected information that will help organizations better understand their customers and outperform competitors. The analyses also help develop accurately targeted marketing campaigns by specifically identifying customer needs. Analyzing customers’ information, along with their history of website visits, social media posts, and past interactions can help predict a few issues that the customer could be dealing with, this is highly essential in the customer service domain. Interplay can help companies working in transportation and logistics to predict accurate delivery times, optimize transport and delivery costs, forecast resource management, and respond quickly to unexpected events. With its international shipping predictor capabilities, Interplay connects to external shipping brokerage APIs as well as internal product and inventory catalogs. This gives the customer a smooth and seamless experience while also keeping costs within budgeted boundaries.

What’s next in innovation?

So long as enterprises and large business conglomerates continue to depend on technological advancements for their development and success–and they will–innovation will remain invaluable. Connect with our team of experts to solve your innovation challenges today.