Step 5

 

Evaluating maturity levels is a crucial starting point in Innovation Management, a systematic process that encompasses planning, organising, controlling, and directing innovation within an organization. This approach encourages the exploration of new ideas to enhance experiences and boost performance across all business functions. It involves identifying opportunities within journey maps, progressing through development stages from research to testing, and ultimately deploying innovative solutions. While Innovation Management is sometimes perceived as an abstract concept, it is, in fact, a multidisciplinary field with numerous models, theories, and frameworks ready for application in real-world business scenarios.

 

In our specific case, Innovation Management is tightly associated with the relevance of customer touchpoints, meaning that all innovations, whether front-end or back-end, must align with the touchpoints of a particular stage or milestone in a customer journey. Traditional models often outline five levels of innovation maturity, starting from the recognition of the need for innovation without necessarily connecting it to revenue and customer value.

 

Traditional models typically delineate the five stages of maturity, commencing the acknowledgement of the necessity for innovation without always linking it to revenue and customer value. In our specific context, Innovation and Journey Management are closely intertwined with the significance of customer touchpoints. This entails ensuring that all innovations, whether front-end or back-end, must always align with the touchpoints of a customer journey.

 

As teams advance, innovations begin to wield a more substantial impact, prompting the development of structures to bolster innovation. Ultimately, excellence is attained when innovation management evolves into an established capability, consistently yielding high levels of impact. To gauge our maturity in journey and innovation management, we can utlilise the 5-level maturity model, comprising five critical mastery levels. These levels range from a reactive and rudimentary approach to a more sophisticated and continuous improvement-oriented one.

 

Level 1: Reactive

In the first level, there are no formal procedures in a company and all customer or internal issues are dealt on the spot. In this environment, individuals act on impulse and demonstrate a hero approach. This is very typical in companies with limited resources and lack of infrastructures or systemic organisational processes to manage emergencies.

 

Level 2: Structured

At the second level companies initiate to put the first procedures in place and the management team identifies the need of improvements by making innovation a priority. Most traditional businesses fall under this category but depending on the given circumstances, they can fluctuate among various maturity levels. Our company was at this stage at the early stages of its development before it reached higher levels. Although innovations were always a driving force in our cultural compass, from the very early beginning of its existence, it was never incentivised, until September 2022, where the Executive team established the Innovation Incentives Scheme. Every week two teams gets awarded for the most impactful innovations and once a month the team that delivers more consistently during this month.

 

Level 3: In Control

The third stage reflects a more structured business with established journeys driven by workflow processes. This is when teams learn to navigate through these journeys to work with their customers and internal colleagues. At this level we landed when we started drafting and finalising protocols and mapping out customer journeys.

 

Level 4: Internalised

At this stage the company embarked on the fourth level with Customer Journeys introducing a single online hub for customer journeys and innovations, while also mentoring teams to innovate and manage their journeys more effectively. Currently, our organisation is with more than 3,000 customer touchpoints, both front-end and back-end, 28 journeys and 1,971 innovations from 2022 to Q1 2024 across all departments.

 

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Level 5: Continuous Improving

The last stage refers to a company that is obsessed with innovations and journey expansion. All teams have a deep understanding on how to deliver advanced customer experiences, and are working as a single body based on their customer journeys map that are the single source of truth. Consistent and continuous improvement are prerequisites to sustain growth. We really hope to reach that level soon. By correlating the Innovation Success Ratio (ISR) metric with the 5 Maturity Steps in journey and innovation management, it facilitates the identification of whether your current activities are reactive or proactive towards initiatives. For instance, if your team is on the Level 1: Reactive, indicated by an ISR below 50% within a given period, it doesn’t only signify that most of your innovations are not getting through your customers, but also reveals a tendency to address customer issues and internal problems on an ad hoc basis. This scenario is very typical in units with limited resources or inadequate infrastructure to manage emergencies and heavy workloads.

 

And teams mature, the ISR surpasses 60%, indicating significant progress in journey and innovation management, reflecting well-organised procedures, streamlined workflows, and customer journeys transitioning as the primary reference point for every customer issue or innovation. Ultimately, the company becomes fully committed to innovation and journey expansion, delivering transformative experiences and fostering consistent growth.