Here, Mirko Voltolini, VP Technology & Innovation, Colt Technology Services, sheds light on the determining factors underpinning the firm’s innovation initiatives, and what we can learn from them.
Leveraging agility for a competitive advantage in the race to innovation success is within the scope of all MSP business leaders. But for bigger competitors, the road to innovation may be harder to navigate. “Driving innovation is particularly challenging for large companies,” stated Voltolini. “Complex processes and systems, budget restraints, a lack of leadership support and a company culture slow to adapt to change are barriers faced by innovators when the company grows bigger. Colt has been able to maintain a good level of agility despite our transition from a start-up to a global well established business.”
Voltolini explained that a balance of Colt’s ‘find a better way’ and change-driven mindset, along with a commitment to the customer experience and diversity creates an environment that fuels innovation, new ideas and creative thinking. “Culture and leadership are critically important in creating the right conditions for our innovators to thrive,” he stated. “You can present an outstanding innovation strategy to leaders, but if no-one is willing to take the risk to fail now and again, the opportunity isn’t there and it’s a restrictive environment.”
There’s definitely a trend for larger businesses to talk about having a start-up approach, according to Voltolini. He also noted that the main disruptive characteristics of start-up firms are an energetic drive for success, creativity, collaboration and an agile growth mindset that embraces risk taking, along with a readiness to fail fast without consequences. “It’s about approaching a problem with openness and a willingness to listen,” added Voltolini. “All of these traits can be developed with the right culture and leadership.”
Adopting an open innovation approach has enabled Colt to pursue a top to bottom initiative that is paying dividends across the business, including how it operates internally, according to Voltolini. “Innovation starts from within a company,” he stated. “We’ve tasked every one of our 6,500 Colties with a mission to flag up complex processes that slow them down so we can simplify, innovate and accelerate against our goals.”
Bridging the innovation gap
To bridge the gap between disruptive thinking, innovation and the delivery of new real-world customer-ready solutions, MSPs would be wise to also instate strategies and processes with customer listening and acting on feedback at their core, believes Voltolini. “Ask questions that bring to the surface what’s not working for customers, find out their strategic goals and objectives, uncover the problems they need solving – and consider how to make it effortless for them to do business with you,” he stated.
“Adopting this approach creates a solid basis for innovation – and combined with a 360 degree view of all the key factors to be taken into consideration, innovators gain a full understanding of the macro environment, real-world influences, the role of new technologies and how organisations are responding. This bridges the gap between innovation and practicality.”
One important outcome to emerge from this course of action reported by Colt is that sustainability is top of mind for its customers, so the business is exploring a number of ways to support its clients’ sustainability goals. This includes trialling technologies that reduce power consumption and improve network performance. An open and diverse organisational culture that encourages new ideas and disruptive thinking is also fundamental to the success of Colt’s innovation strategy, noted Voltolini. “As a global business, we know from first-hand experience that diverse teams drive a more dynamic, innovative and successful work environment,” he commented.
“Different perspectives, alternative approaches to evaluation, problem solving and decision making are critical across all business functions, in particular an innovation team. Deloitte found that companies with diverse and inclusive cultures are six times more innovative and agile than those without. That’s something we see at Colt time and again.”