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Employee-driven innovation is not an idea contest. It’s a way to solve real business problems sustainably.

Many managers still associate employee-driven innovation with “collecting fun ideas.” That’s why it often remains vague: what is it actually for? Which challenges can you tackle with it—and which ones can’t you?

In my experience, the moment you link employee-driven innovation to a sharp strategic challenge and a clear playing field, it becomes a powerful management tool. Not only for creating new products, but also for making processes more efficient, improving the customer experience, building new value propositions, and moving faster from strategy to execution.

A useful framework to make this concrete is Doblin’s 10 Types of Innovation. It shows that innovation is much broader than simply “launching a new product.”

Below, I’ve listed the kinds of challenges each innovation type typically helps solve—using examples we at Bedenk have received from clients over the past 14 years.

Doblin's 'Ten types of innovation'

In the red “Configuration” block, we mainly look at the inside of the organization. What can we reinvent there?

Profit Model – How do we generate (more) revenue?

Employee-driven innovation helps when you want to grow without blindly investing in “yet another new thing.”

Typical challenges

“Develop a commercial strategy for the next two years that delivers 20% growth with our existing products.”
“How can we use our expertise to protect small and medium-sized enterprises from financial setbacks?”
“How can we ensure Belgian SMEs get green insights from their data—and how do we turn that into a compelling value proposition?”

Network – Who do we collaborate with to move faster?

Many innovation problems are actually ecosystem problems: partners, repair networks, suppliers, platforms, governments…

Typical challenges

“How can we radically improve the customer experience with certified repair partners?”
“Which partnerships do we need to make our solution scalable in new markets?”
“How do we build a network model where partners co-create value—and share in the gains?”

Strategic innovation workshop

In the grey “Offering” block, we mainly think about our offering: what can we innovate in our products and services?

Product Performance – What do we make better or smarter?

This is “classic” product innovation—powered by internal, hands-on expertise.

Typical challenges

“Design Precision Livestock Farming applications that will keep our customers connected to us in the future.”
“How can we use real-time data to build new features that demonstrably add value for the customer?”
“What should we remove, simplify, or automate to deliver on our core promise?”