The importance of communication in technological and digital innovation

If you are an entrepreneur in a growing SME, you are probably asking yourself: “how can I innovate and keep up with the pace of the market?”.

Innovation is critical to the survival and growth of the company. In itself, the innovation process must be started with a clear vision and kept active by a leader who takes care of the progress and pushes towards the set objectives.

To start a profitable innovative process, communication, both internal and external to the company, is equally important in order to guarantee the success of the innovation itself.

In this article, we will talk about the importance of communication in technological and digital innovation and the benefits it can bring to the company. In addition, we will use real-life case study examples developed by the Co-Brains team to contextualize and hopefully inspire those who are planning to start their own business growth and improvement process.

The importance of communication during the innovation process

The innovative process requires involvement and participation. Internal communication is therefore one of the key tools to ensure that all stakeholders are informed about the progress of the innovation and are able to contribute to the project.

“Innovation has never come through bureaucracy and hierarchy. It has always come through individuals.” John Sculley

In fact, internal communication helps to strengthen the sense of belonging and trust among company members: when people are involved in innovation they feel valued and an integral part of the change. This leads to an increase in engagement and motivation which almost instantly translates into greater creativity and productivity on the part of the workers.

Corporate culture affects every aspect of the business, including innovation processes. To innovate, you must be willing to do different things, to think outside the box. Indeed, to insert the innovative approach within the corporate culture, you must be ready to invest time, resources and energy in the innovation process. That means you need to create an environment that supports innovation itself, foster collaboration across departments, and incentivize employees to take responsibility.

Cross-sector collaboration and involvement of different profiles

Communication is essential for any entrepreneur who wants to create successful networks and collaborations. To be able to innovate in a significant way, it is necessary to be able to select the key players in the project, so as to allow their active participation by enhancing their ideas.

This is why we too at Co-Brains, in addition to our ecosystem, suppliers and partners, actively collaborate in two valuable networks such as Polihub, the official accelerator of the Milan Polytechnic Foundation, and Spazio PMI, a network of companies and professionals that collaborates on shared growth.

In fact, to solve complex problems we need collaborations of different nature and order of extent. For this reason, our advice is to create collaborations that cross sectoral and industrial boundaries and bring new creative life to the idea. Furthermore, engaging various types of stakeholders, even those from other sectors and industries, from the very beginning of the innovation process can lead to a clear competitive advantage in building the solid foundation. To create value for customers, employees and partners, you need to involve them in innovation activity. Indeed, the interests of all stakeholder groups are important because the most valuable innovation is the one that creates value for all.

The virtuous cycle of innovation: the Ta Design case

This last concept, innovating can generate shared value, brings us back to the process we have conducted in recent years with Ta Design.

Indeed, within this innovative project the participation of various players was essential to allow the company to totally digitize its sales cycle and many after-sales activities. Communicating and involving were the keywords of this innovation process which led the company to integrate, in the initial phase of construction of the project, also its customers in order to better understand the needs and carry out an early-on-process boarding.

External communication: a fundamental step to involve your customers

External communication is an equally important means of ensuring the success of the innovation.

In fact, when you innovate it is essential to communicate the results to the outside world because it helps to create awareness and generate market interest which can also translate into business opportunities.

Once the innovation process is finished, it is at that moment that you need to communicate it to your audience. Communication is key at this stage because that’s what will help you get customers’ attention, convince them, and adopt your product or use your service.

Spreading innovation means making change visible: Cimberio and DKC cases

Cimberio SPA is an example of value for the external communication activity towards the network of stakeholders. In fact, once the development process by the Co-Brains team of the Smart Cim platform was completed, the company immediately involved customers, suppliers and partners by communicating the good news: “we imagined it and therefore we innovated”

Also in the collaboration with DKC, external communication was fundamental for the dissemination and appreciation of the system. The goal, in this case, was to innovate by guaranteeing an excellent digital after-sales service. In fact, in the customer journey of the final consumer of DKC, the after-sales service is a fundamental touch point to be monitored for the appreciation of the target. For all these reasons communicating it becomes a duty: what is not communicated does not exist.

These two examples make it clear how serving the market a quality product combined with innovative services is the best way to stand out and increase your company’s reputation by gaining a big competitive advantage on the market: being innovators!

Conclusions

In summary, communication is a key factor for the innovation and success of growing SMEs: without effective communication, innovation can fail.

Internal and external communication are essential to promote your innovative product/service by involving, activating, creating collaborations and listening to all stakeholders: employees, customers, suppliers and partners.