Disrupting Enterprise Lab Technology: Innovative Informatics

Silicon Valley is a beacon of cutting-edge tech development. It conjures up images of agile, disruptive startups taking on the world and winning with their entrepreneurial gusto. It’s where category-defining tech innovators like Apple, Google, Kiip and Lyft’ have made their home. But does this creative culture have to be confined to the West Coast?

Wherever they’re based and whatever their offering, tech companies the world over can benefit from injecting a similar approach to innovation by following five key steps.

1. Be nimble: Silicon Valley thrives on its ability to move fast and stay ahead of the pack. This flexibility creates a competitive advantage and delivers cutting-edge technology solutions.
2. Inspire your team: A culture of empowerment across the organization encourages employees to embrace creativity and improve processes by iterating on existing ideas. This is when those ‘break-through’ moments happen.
3. Hire top talent: success flourishes when their employees are creative and passionate about what they do. They’re willing to try new things and want to discover and deliver products that transform the lives of people worldwide. Fear of failure doesn’t hold them back.
4. Focus on the users: User experience can make or break a tech development. Putting this at the heart of product development to match up shifting user expectations with the way software is developed is key.
5. Embrace positive change: Innovation is at the heart of technology. It’s what drives the greatest advances in tech development. Tearing up the rulebook and ‘the way things ought to be done’ can accelerate the pace of bringing new products to market – as long as it represents change with benefits, rather than innovation for innovation’s sake.

While it’s not easy to create another tech hub quite like Silicon Valley, the ideologies and successes the region has seen is something all tech businesses can learn from. The start-up mentality, blended with deep domain expertise, is a winning combination and it’s already enabling us to be more innovative and creative in our work at IDBS. Leading from the front, our CTO is a huge advocate. A focus on people and culture takes organizations in a new direction and for us aligns closely with our goals to provide software that really matters, and help R&D organizations discover and deliver products that transform the lives of people worldwide.