At the end of February, the Hartree Centre North East Hub hosted a two-day masterclass at the Village Hotel Newcastle to explore data-driven innovation.  Over the two days, there were plenty of opportunities to delve into sector-specific conversations with our experts and engage in hands-on activities, such as focus groups.

Throughout the workshop, attendees were able to explore data sources and analysis, discuss innovation models, have a look at some interesting case studies, and begin to implement tailored strategies that they could then take away with them.

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What is Value Innovation?

Delivering exceptional value to your most important customer every time.

Achieving successful value innovation is a delicate balance between addressing direct customer needs and utilising cutting-edge technology. There are a number of things to consider when creating your data innovation strategy, some of them are:

Technology Push VS Market Pull  

When thinking about innovation, it is important to think about the value you are providing and whether it is innovation as a result of demand and market pull, or whether it is as a result of developing technologies and pushing them out to market. By making sure you are catering to the requirements of your buyers, your innovation strategy should be heading in the right direction.

Recognising Key Customers  

Have a look at your organisation’s value chain by breaking down all of the transactions between you and your end user. By analysing your value chain, it becomes easier to highlight opportunities for cost reduction, process optimisation and competitive advantage.

Asking the Right Questions

Conducting contextual interviews with your most important customers will provide you with optimal qualitative research. The crucial thing to remember here is to ask open-ended questions, so that you can extract the key insights that will allow you to move forward to develop a product that reflects your customers’ needs.

Why not check out our Guide to De-risking Innovation, to learn more?

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What did the attendees think?

“Highly recommended. Steve and the team delivered an exceptional syllabus explaining and illustrating the value of data science using a broad range of real-world use cases. The whole team continued to support delegates on industry-specific questions which added rich context to the topic.”

- Dale Parr, Director at Structures of Legacy

It was an informative 2 days, with lots of useful information that I will be able to take and utilise in my work. All of the staff involved were really passionate and friendly, and the delivery by Steve was great. Would highly recommend!"

- Sarah Hughes, Head of Strategy and Data at Land Digital

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To Conclude

We are already starting to plan our next residential event; you can make sure you are the first to hear by following us on LinkedIn and signing up for our newsletter.

If you would like to better understand more about how data can help your organisation to grow, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at Hartree Centre North East Hub at: hello@hartreenortheast.uk

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