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Introducing Innovation Labs, the tailor-made solution to your business problems

| Sam Hutchings

Sixty Second Summary

In uncertain or difficult times, like these, business agility and innovation are key to keep your business ahead of the game. Innovation Labs are designed with this in mind, helping your business remain fluid and respond to fast-moving changes in the wider economy, society, legislation and competition.

Full Article - 5 Minute Read

Introducing Innovation Labs by The Familiar

You may have seen from our sparkling new Workshops page that we now have four different flavours of Workshop on offer. Core to this new offering is the Innovation Lab by The Familiar, a tailor-made workshop to help you and your business discover internal challenges, examine current opportunties and stay innovative in an ever-changing and demanding business world.

Join me, in this short blog post, as I explore the new Innovation Lab, what it means for you and your business, and when and how to get started with your own lab.

Benefits of The Familiar’s Innovation Lab

The tailor-made approach to our Innovation Labs mean they can be adapted to solve any business need, but the main benefits our customers see are:

Better understand your customers and their needs

By involving your customers, or a sample of them, in your Innovation Lab, you’re better able to understand their needs and goals and how they align with your own. This means that you can start to innovate your products and services in ways that your customers will appreciate, boosting sales revenue and potential profits.

Discover breakthrough opportunities and critical challenges

The activities and workshops that make up an Innovation Lab are perfectly suited to help you and your business discover opportunities and challenges that already exist within your business, but which highlighting and solving could take you to the next level.

For example, there may be a process in your sales funnel that is causing 50% of your customers to give up on the transaction partway through. By using an Innovation Lab focussed on introspection and challenge discovery, you can identify pitfalls such as this and produce actionable steps to resolve the issue.

Produce actionable steps to make the most of the opportunities facing you

One of the most powerful outcomes of any workshop is the actionable steps you identify and document during the process, and this is no different with an Innovation Lab. By the end of your Lab, we hope that you’ll have informed, actionable insights you can work from.

Learn repeatable frameworks and tools you can use again and again

Innovation Labs aren’t something you should run once and then never do again. They’re designed to be run whenever you identify a potential challenge or opportunity for your business, to help you best address it and move forward.

During your Innovation Lab, you and your team will learn new techniques and activities that they can take back to their day-to-day work, helping them make better decisions and have a greater impact on your business.

Want to get started with your own Innovation Lab?

Before all our Workshops, we run a short 45-minute call to understand your business, goals, challenges and opportunities. To book your no-obligation consultation, pop us an email or call us.

The Structure of an Innovation Lab

Every Innovation Lab we deliver is unique, tailored to the client we’re working with, their business, and the needs, challenges and opportunities they have.

An Innovation Lab may last an afternoon and consist solely of interviewing existing customers, or it may last a few days and serve as the preparation work for a larger Design Sprint or project.

Your Innovation Lab may be hosted remotely, or at your own business premises, or you may want to choose somewhere special to host it.

Your Customers may be involved in your innovation lab, helping you to understand their needs and wants. Or, you may work solely with other members of your team.

The Before-The-Workshop Call

Before every Innovation Lab, we offer a free 45-minute consultation during which, we will:

  • Discuss your business goals
  • Work to understand, at a high level, the challenges and opportunities you see
  • Start to piece together an Innovation Lab that’s tailored for you and your business
  • Explain how you’re under no obligation to continue with the Lab if you don’t want to

The Results of an Innovation Lab

I’ve outlined the benefits of running an Innovation Lab already, but what are the results you should expect to see?

Firstly, there are the “deliverables” that we bring to the table. These include a written report of the Innovation Lab, what was discovered, what was discussed, and the decisions that were made during the Lab. This document is incredibly important in helping drive the action after the Lab, rather than letting the passion and drive fizzle out.

For your team, we’ve found that an Innovation Lab results in them acquiring new skills and a new passion for identifying challenges and opportunities. Your team becomes a problem-solving and idea-generation machine.

For your company, the results of an Innovation Lab, when implemented properly, can lead to:

  • Understanding complex product relationships
  • Understanding product evolution
  • Understanding sales needs
  • Identifying areas for improvement
  • Prioritizing market needs
  • Understanding hidden desires
  • Creating strategic plans
  • And much more

When to Start an Innovation Lab

You’ve seen already just some of the benefits others have achieved by running an Innovation Lab. From a better understanding of their customers to discovering breakthrough opportunities and critical challenges, all of this happened because somebody at that company decided to work with The Familiar.

You, like them, very likely already have challenges and opportunities - known and unknown - around your business that could be identified and acted upon with an Innovation Lab. That makes the best time to start an Innovation Lab as soon as you can, so you can work through these challenges and embrace these opportunities as soon as possible.

How to Start an Innovation Lab

Now you understand what’s involved with an Innovation Lab, the next step is to [email protected] or call +44(0)1227 206 206 to book a no-obligation 45-minute consultation and talk to Martin or Sam about booking in your first (or next) Innovation Lab with The Familiar.

Need help with a thorny problem?

Our remote facilitated applied design workshops will you answer your organisations biggest questions and problems. In 2 days to 2 weeks we can help you identify challenges, prototype and validate solutions. Get in touch for an obligation-free discussion.