Innovations do not find a home everywhere. Startups and disruptors are looking for special events that a town or city has to fulfil in order to be attractive.
But how can a district such as Miesbach in Upper Bavaria attract innovative lateral thinkers? In an interview with Thomas Klotz for das Wirtschaftsmagazin „Miesbacher Impuls“ from autumn 2018 I take a stand on the current innovation landscape in Germany and the success factors for the settlement of start-ups.
„Where Innovations live – How the district remains successful and can become even more innovative“
Thomas Klotz / Miesbacher Impulse
The winners of the video competition Fast Forward Science have been announced. This year’s topics included tomatoes from outer space, heart cells growing on spinach and an artificial intelligence that counts calories over a variety of trends and visions of the future.
In the winter semester 2018/2019 Alexander Pinker will again teach the lecture „Trend and Innovation Management“ at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt.
In an increasingly dynamic business world, managers must learn to think beyond the classic strategy models. Creativity and inventiveness, just like classic business models, are part of the repertoire of innovative corporate management today. The block lecture „Trend and Innovation Management“ not only gives an overview of the current technical, media and social innovations and developments, it is also intended to give students an insight into the methods used to identify and exploit trends at an early stage.
The aim is to prepare students for a digital and disruptive world. The aim is to awaken their entrepreneurial spirit and convey the essential steps from the idea to the business model. „The students should be able to recognize and assess the opportunities of the future. Nowadays it is of central importance that employees, managers and managing directors understand what a new technology or a social trend means for a company. In the lecture trend and innovation management the students of the FHWS learn exactly these abilities , so Alexander Pinker. In the lecture the elements of design thinking, trend research and business model frameworks play just as big a role as the creativity of the participants.
The retail sector is increasingly facing new challenges. Rising costs, changes in consumer behaviour and the development of networked technology all call for a rethink. In his first book, author Alexander Pinker, founder of the Medialist Innovation Group, focuses on innovation technologies and digital strategies for retailers.
The book „Innovations in Retailing“ is intended to make the vision of integrated retail tangible. Not only are different possibilities and technologies presented on the basis of various best-practice examples, but also the usage aspects of retailers and customers are highlighted through expert interviews and customer surveys. Alexander Pinker describes the possibilities that retailers in Germany have to prepare for the future. Through discussions with dealers, associations, customers and technology experts, the Innovation Profiler gets to the bottom of the opportunities for dealers. The book was published by Disserta Verlag in July 2018.
How retailers can prepare for the future
The aim was to be able to bring the shopping experience closer to the customer again. Therefore, by means of cluster analysis, customer segments, exemplary for both retail segments, were defined and combined in ideal-typical customer journey maps.
In order to reinforce the innovation and futurology research, focus groups were also held to discuss the topic of innovations in retail, and expert interviews were conducted with service providers and solution providers, technology developers and associations, such as the German Retail Association. In the book the results are presented, channel preferences and purchase needs are lit up.
„The dealers must go a new way, in order to be able to exist also in the future , say Alexander Pinker, they must understand that the customer does not wait for them, but develops further. In times of Amazon and Co this can be a death sentence for some small retailers. Retailers must therefore learn to experiment and approach new technologies openly, so they will continue to be successful in the future and can even outperform online competition.“
The book is intended to serve as a guide for retailers to help them introduce an innovation system and make the opportunities of their industry more tangible.
The paperback was published in June 2018 with the number ISBN – 10: 3959354622 or ISBN-13: 3959354622 by Disserta Verlag and is available both from Amazon, the publishing house and the classic book trade.
Further information about the book can be found here.
- 1
- 2