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As technology continues to advance at an exponential rate, there are more software vendors than ever offering real solutions that allow businesses to drive innovation and operate more efficiently.
With so many options to choose from in every technology field, the challenge becomes making an informed decision about which solution to implement on your production environment.
Fortunately, proof-of-concept capabilities have caught up with technology, and enterprises now have the tools they need to easily test and evaluate solutions.
This provides an essential key to pursuing innovation and staying ahead of the competition.
Why is Innovation Important to Enterprises?
In recent years, disruptive products and services have upended entire industries that were once thought to be unshakeable.
As a result, 96% of businesses place innovation in their top five strategic priorities. A full 20% rank innovation as their top priority.
Even the most successful companies recognize that their customers may have completely different needs in the next three to five years. Loyalty cannot be taken for granted by any company. This creates a constant need to not only fulfill immediate needs, but also to stay on top of what the competition is up to, predict how consumer expectations will change — and innovate accordingly.
Companies need a concentrated innovation program, clear support from leadership and the right tools to stay ahead of the innovation curve.
What is a Proof-of-Concept?
When it comes to choosing the right software vendor, proof-of-concepts (PoCs) are the way that enterprises test how any particular solution would perform on their production environment.
In the past, this process required a lot of time and resources. Only one program could be tested at a time, and even then it tended to be a sub-par process that didn’t provide much customization or data.
The entire process was slow, disjointed and only yielded generic results that didn’t necessarily help with decision-making.
Today, the whole process is centralized, streamlined and secure to save time, money and energy.
Enterprises can test more than one solution at a time in the same PoC, and compare those solutions based on specific metrics that matter to them.
They can also more effectively identify relevant startups, create more customized testing environments and use data without any risk.
An easy proof-of-concept process allows more vendors to throw their hat in the ring and gain the attention of enterprise businesses.
Learn More: How to Run a Proof-of-Concept in the 21st Century
How PoCs Improve the Innovation Process for Enterprises
Because running proof-of-concepts used to be such a cumbersome undertaking, many enterprises are still hesitant to engage in full scale PoCs. They have lingering security concerns and don’t want to invest too many resources only to end up with no actionable results.
Perhaps the most significant change to the PoC process has been moving it all to the cloud. All testing can be conducted in customized testing environments so that there isn’t any disruption to daily tasks, or risk to the production data or environment.
Additional benefits of bringing the proof-of-concept process to the cloud like testing and comparing multiple vendors and managing all of your proof-of-concept needs in one place make the PoC process smarter and more efficient.
Why Vendors Should Participate in PoCs
Startups are fueled by passion and new ideas, yet a full 90% of them fail. Many times the problem is that they haven’t made a clear case for why their product is necessary and they have failed to capture the attention of enterprises that they want to work with.
Running PoCs not only helps startups to gain visibility, build brand awareness and validate their product, but it also provides them with valuable insights into where they can make improvements.
The real question is not whether startups should participate in PoC, but how they can better engage enterprises that are running PoCs in search of the right software vendor.
How PoCs Improve the Innovation Process
Innovation can be about improving existing offerings, transforming industries or connecting with a new audience.
No matter what the goal, proof-of-concepts are the best way for enterprises to meet and surpass their innovation needs.
Discovering software vendors, testing their solutions and evaluating their performance helps enterprises move forward faster.
Proof-of-Concepts are the essential tool that provides enterprises with quick and easy access to the latest products and solutions that will help them innovate more efficiently than ever before and stay ahead of the competition.
