APG|SGA innovation process – the foundation for innovative outdoor advertising.
At APG|SGA, innovation is a fundamental component of our corporate culture and a key driver of our strategy. Throughout our company history stretching back over 120 years, we have launched numerous innovations that are now standard for out of home media.
This innovation process is based on dialogue with advertisers, partners, institutions and industry bodies – both national and international. Another key factor is continuous monitoring of ongoing activities. These findings all flow systematically back into our digital and analogue products, always reflecting real-world experience.
We react rapidly to changes in the market, respond immediately to new requirements and develop corresponding products quickly and efficiently, always with an eye to societal, economic, legal, technological and environmental trends.
Our winning combination of systematic innovation processes, highly motivated teams and use of the “design thinking” method results in innovative products and services. Following a pilot phase, we integrate these new solutions into our portfolio, where they undergo continuous development.
APG|SGA innovation processes are where creativity and freedom meet system and structure. This proven modular model incorporates every relevant phase of innovative product development, so that our customers can quickly see market return for their new products and services.
Explore: capturing trends – recognising opportunities.
Through dialogue with customers, agencies, strategic decision-makers and advertising researchers, we capture and analyse the needs of the advertising market. We scout research trends that are relevant to the advertising market, identify opportunities, align them with innovation search fields and the APG|SGA strategy, then determine the next steps.
Ideate: creating, developing and promoting ideas.Taking market needs and trends as a starting point, interdisciplinary teams – together with universities, start-ups, developers and other participants – formulate new ideas in intensive workshops and discuss them with customers and partners. The resulting feedback is the foundation for any market-related adjustments before the idea graduates to the detailed development process for new products. Involving customers and partners from the start is a top priority at APG|SGA, because it guarantees that the focus is always on customer needs and market proximity.
Validate: testing the market, building and testing prototypes.
The next step sees the innovation teams prioritising ideas as prototypes to test them on the market. Adjustments are made and fine-tuning is completed based on customer feedback, to determine the potential market viability as early as possible in the process and to properly reflect customer and partner needs.
Incubate: from prototype to market maturity, with feedback.The customer-oriented prototypes now feed into pilot projects or minimum viable products (MVP) to be tested in key regions. The feedback from this direct market testing provides a basis for further adjustments. If the idea gets a positive response out in the real world, it moves on to the next round.
Accelerate: developing and informing the market.
Once the pilot or MVP has successfully passed the test phase, the product is ready for roll-out across the market. This is when sales activities kick into gear, with marketing and distribution put in place and a roadmap defined.
Scale: penetrating and scaling the market.
Following successful market development, the new products are transferred to the relevant business areas to manage sales and marketing activities around the launch – including continuous development of the new solution.
APG|SGA is always on the lookout for innovative companies that can help it gauge current market requirements and develop solutions. Would you and your company make a good partner? Then get in touch. We would be happy to talk you through different forms of collaboration and ways in which we can create innovations for the future together.
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