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Mastering innovation: when size isn’t everything

  • Sync NI speaks with the team at Expleo to find out more about why size isn’t everything when it comes to innovation.

    Innovation can often be misunderstood. It is not always a big bang idea that gets people talking. It can be small, incremental changes that may even go unnoticed. The impact, however, can be huge. For Amazon, the seemingly simple invention of ‘1-Click’ ordering transformed the company from a bookseller to the world’s largest online marketplace.

    Big or small, innovation is the continuous striving to be better; a constant push to make the customer’s journey easier and more seamless than what competitors are offering. Each innovation breeds more innovation and fiercer competition across all sectors, from retail and financial services, to automotive and aerospace.

    Expleo delivers technology and engineering services to businesses in Northern Ireland and across the world. In doing so, it must relentlessly stay ahead of the latest trends, offering innovative solutions and ideas to businesses, supported by investments in people and technology. The company leverages emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and edge computing, while adopting new processes to advise, and lead, in what is an unprecedented time of great change.

    “We use a company-wide approach to innovation, which encourages everyone in the organisation, regardless of their role, to contribute,” explains Tony Wright, Solutions Architect, Expleo. “It involves a combination of macro innovation – executive-led, strategic initiatives – along with lower risk, micro innovations, which encourage ideation from staff and teams on the ground.”

    Wright explains that these innovations stem largely from problem identification and solution development. Expleo sees problems and challenges every day across all sectors and is committed to investing to provide leading-edge solutions. “We are aware that not all the initiatives we foster turn into successful outcomes or implementations,” says Wright. “And that our culture should not penalise these concepts or stifle the people behind them. The reality is that some ideas will not succeed. Equally, the reality is that without these ideas, we cannot encourage creative thinking and foster bold innovations.”

    A major issue that continues to grab the headlines is the global IT and digital skills shortage. Research from Expleo’s Business Transformation Index 2022 Ireland report shows that IT skills shortages are negatively impacting the business plans of 56% of enterprises in Ireland. An alarming 77%, meanwhile, say that talent shortages are a top barrier to digital transformation.

    “These are concerning statistics,” says Wright. “Delivering innovation hinges on having the right talent and skills, coupled with the best processes and technologies. The types of skills required to bring technological innovations to market quickly are often scarce, which threatens the exponential pace of change that we have been seeing over the past number of years. From our own monitoring of the market, we are consistently seeing that skills in the engineering of software, data, performance and automation are in short supply.”

    Again, innovation can play its part in solving this issue. For instance, AI technology can help to more accurately match candidates with open job vacancies and recruitment departments can leverage Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to scrape large numbers of CVs and process these more efficiently. Predictive analytics, meanwhile, can help companies to proactively target potential candidates via social media.   

    Innovation on demand

    Often, innovation happens quickly and is in response to problems and opportunities that are surfacing in real time. As part of its commitment to supporting businesses with their innovation strategies and process implementation, Expleo has evolved the concept of providing access to specialists as and when businesses need them – at short notice and for short periods of time.

    “The shortage of specialist skills has the propensity to smother innovation,” says Wright. “But it is also true that specialist expertise may only be needed at key milestones during a project. Therefore, it doesn’t always make sense to hire in-house or have experts permanently available. In response to this, we have introduced a highly flexible on-demand sourcing model, providing highly-skilled industry and technical experts who can accelerate innovation for our global clients and the wider market.”

    Wright explains that this on-demand service can reduce budgets by using engineers only when needed, while also supporting the critical stages of a project. This new shared-services model augments the more traditional modes of professional services engagement and increases the value delivered to Expleo clients. In turn, the company is enabling the release of new innovative products and services, from augmented reality (AR) solutions and IoT platforms, to industrial monitoring systems processing millions of signals per hour.

    What has transpired is that these on-demand specialists and teams have created a culture of low-budget, low-risk micro innovation that focuses on incremental changes that make a big impact; one that acts as a catalyst for further innovation. “You could say that it drives innovation within innovation,” says Wright, while adding that it is also helping to address the challenges in the domain of User Experience (UX) and accessibility of software.

    Accessibility of software applications has become a legal requirement for government organisations over the last few years and this is likely to extend to the private sector in the very near future. Aside from it being a legal requirement, making applications accessible to all is ethically correct and inclusive. It also makes good business sense as around 20% of the population have an impairment that impacts their use of software applications.

    “At Expleo, we have been evolving our accessibility services within the specialisms offered by the on-demand delivery model,” says Wright. “More recently, our teams have worked to provide specialist accessibility expertise with a client designing innovative mobile applications for education. Our on-demand accessibility specialists were able to advise and audit the accessibility of the application and its clever AR technology using not only certified and trained UX experts, but also real-world users on real devices with real impairments such as blindness and Multiple Sclerosis.”

    At the heart of it, this is what innovation is. It’s about solving problems and overcoming challenges through culture, processes, people and tools. It’s about flourishing and thriving at all levels, from small wins to large-scale change. Getting that combination right will not just provide one innovation; it will set off a chain reaction of innovations within innovations. 

    About the author

    Aoife is a Sync NI writer with a previous background working in print, online and broadcast media. She has a keen interest in all things tech related. To connect with Aoife feel free to send her an email or connect on LinkedIn.

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