Mobility companies need to have a “champion” — a dedicated person to handle the company’s innovation goals — in an effort to find a balance between technology investments and meeting daily operational demands, said Miranda Hill, director of innovation and commerce strategy at ThoughtWorks.
“You have to have a champion that will basically say, ‘You know what, we are going to invest a certain amount of innovation dollars to run experiments,’ she told attendees at Auto Finance Innovation 2017. Companies also need to have a team “that can essentially articulate these future visions and test them out at the end of the day,’” she said.
In such a heavily regulated industry, institutions cannot be afraid to “cannibalize” their own business, added Todd Nelson, business development officer of LightStream, the online lending division of Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks. “The folks willing to do that and sacrifice what they do today in order to leap themselves forward, have a chance of fundamentally changing the industries they are in,” he said.
Amazon is one example of a company that was not afraid to cannibalize itself, Nelson said. Amazon started out selling books, but now “books have little to do with Amazon today,” he said. This is because they make so much more money in web services today, than books. “Having that lack of fear goes a long way towards innovation,” Nelson said.
Hear more from Hill and Nelson about innovation tips and best practices in the video below, the first in a six-part video series from Auto Finance Innovation 2017, held last month in San Diego:
