The ITONICS Software leverages natural language processing, augmented through human intelligence, to help organizations easily scout and scan for signals of change.
Employing machine intelligence will most likely be a phased transformation for most organizations, and a pragmatic strategy is first to consider where and how machine intelligence could be deployed to alleviate any bottlenecks that slow down processes.
One such common area of congestion is analyzing large amounts of data and deriving useful insights to identify areas for innovation. Executives are often able to describe prominent themes that indicate consumer and operational shifts relating to their organization; however, few can easily identity sub-themes, key developments, emerging technologies relating to themes, and subtle shifts in consumer preferences and behaviors. In addition, coordinating stakeholder and employee involvement around these insights can become gridlocked, inefficient, and uninspiring.
The 4 Opportunities machine intelligence presents to improve Environmental Scanning
How does ITONICS Software help scan for weak signals?
Where do weak signals come from?
How to move from weak signal gathering to uncovering drivers of change
The 4 Opportunities Machine Intelligence Presents to improve Environmental Scanning
ITONICS natural language processing delivers improved productivity by automating scanning activities which frees up human intelligence for more complex tasks. Scaling scanning and scouting activities through leveraging this functionality ensures operational efficiency and supports human efforts in the following ways:
Bolstering data analysis processes can decrease time spent, increase creativity, and empower decision-making.
Instantly access millions of verified sources to monitor influences on your innovation ecosystem in real-time.
The processes of sensing, interpreting, and acting on environmental scanning cues can be hindered by confusion due to the amount of data and can lead to uncoordinated decision-making. Advanced search, filtering, and tagging features accelerate data to insight processes.
Exploit all qualified data sources through easily clustering themes together and gaining insight fast.
How does ITONICS Software help scan for weak signals?
With abundant data available to most organizations, the challenge lies in uncovering the relevant insights and patterns that the data holds. This begins by scanning for weak signals. Weak signals are fragments of information that indicate shifts. These signals can be technologies, behaviors, cultural and societal phenomena, geographical and environmental shifts, and subtle changes in industry ecosystems.
These shifts can seem unconvincing and are mostly happening on the periphery of industry environments. Due to their fringe occurrence, these indicators can often be dismissed as anomalies. And while weak signals can indeed sometimes turn out to be anomalies, they can also be the first signs of industry disruption.
Therefore, it is vital to monitor weak signals—visualizing how they evolve and form connections to understand the broader shifts they represent. This is the foundation of Trend and Emerging Technology scouting that turns unstructured data into actionable intelligence that can help organizations adequately prepare for possible futures.
ITONICS allows you to scan for weak signals for any of the following use cases:
Monitor the overall activity of my competitors.
Find startups that are active within a certain area (e.g. blockchain).
Scan for technological solutions to a problem my organization is facing.
Find new technologies in a broader technology area that could help my organization innovate and grow.
Identify market developments and trends in order to develop products in time to satisfy the new needs.
Evaluate the risk and potential of a technology by identifying its readiness and applications.
Identifying relevant sources and creating specific search fields powers the ITONICS natural language processing technology to scan large amounts of verified sources. Search fields can help you with any of the above-mentioned use cases by acting as virtual scouting bots that scan and collect information that relates to your particular organizational interest. Search fields may emerge either from an organization’s strategy or its core value chain activities.
Where do weak signals come from?
ITONICS Software reliably identifies trends, technologies, and developments in any market for your specific use case by scan online sources and proprietary document stores for patents, scientific publications, websites, etc. It collects, aggregates, interprets, and intelligently links this data and generates a reliable base for strategic up-to-date and cutting-edge management decisions. This enables you to adapt effectively to the expected and unexpected developments of the market.
How to Move from Weak Signal Gathering to Uncovering Drivers of Change
Weak signal scanning provides a reliable platform from which to explore new and innovative ideas.
You can move through the process in the following ways using the ITONICS Innovation Platform:
Using specific search fields you are able to gain orientation and focus on specific areas of interest.
The simple Signal templates enable everyone in the organization to compare and assess information through the same lens, allowing easy consensus.
Weak signal characteristics can include more general specifications (i.e. STEEP) to more distinct designations (i.e. using current trending terminology that describes the characteristics of the weak signal or using demographic information etc). Use tags to help you identify themes easily.
Identifying theme owners through user roles on the platform supports dedicated individuals and teams that can regularly browse through signals to monitor emerging patterns and drivers of change.
Use weak signals to also act as inspirations for new business opportunities and stimulate ideas that may improve processes, products, or services.