What is trend scouting?

Trends are external forces impacting an organization. They can be structured in categories like Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political trends. Compared to emerging technologies defining the Technology Push, trends reflect the so-called “Market Pull,” mostly defined by changes in consumer behaviors and needs over time.

Why is trend scouting important?

Knowing which trends may impact your business enables you to prepare for and adapt to societal change. One of the most important activities in innovation management – trend scouting – continuously identifies and analyzes changing needs and wants.

Trend Scouting & Trend Management

Detect signals of change faster

Kickstart your trend scouting with the ITONICS trend content and industry presets included in your system and updated periodically. Augment scouting, scanning, and monitoring with AI-enabled signal feeds that provide real-time information on trends important to your industry, geography, and research topics.

Reduce the human effort required to spot and monitor important trends with filtered data that fit your search intent. Save time by allowing distributed teams to scout trends within one online platform and build cross-functional innovation ecosystems. Identify trends, risks, and startups that have potential—short, mid, and long term.

Enable your innovation communities to focus their efforts while still investigating environments broadly. Organize and categorize data with ITONICS best-practice templates on one digital platform.

Our client DMK worked with 500,000 trend scouts worldwide to derive new business opportunities by identifying weak signals and trends in the food industry.

Learn more about ITONICS Insights

Build your trend database

Collect spontaneous ideas, market observations, competitor activities, and inputs from industry events on the go. By using ITONICS Inspirator App and Webclipper, your trend scouts can capture anything relevant to your business.

Huge amounts of data become searchable with ITONICS Insights by using advanced search, filters, and tags. Enrich existing trends, risks, and startup content with new and related signals. Provide ongoing evidence of market shifts and relevant topical themes.

ITONICS’ client Intel runs a global trend community, bringing together experts from across the organization. Together, they collect, evaluate, and interpret relevant insights emerging in their corporate landscape.

Overcome internal silos and merge disconnected sources in one company-wide database.

Learn more about ITONICS Inspirator App

Analyze drivers of change collaboratively

Visualize your data on the ITONICS Radar to get a 360° view of what’s important. Continuously build a competitive advantage and stay ahead of the curve. Analyze data and arrive at answers quickly to inform strategy at the right time.

Engage the entire organization to identify, discuss, and rate trends relevant to your company’s future. Harness collective intelligence with configurable rating functionality. Validate insights to inform strategic decision-making.

Provide your community with specific focus points and engage management to prioritize certain opportunities.

Learn more about ITONICS Radar

Streamlining the flow of innovation at DB Schenker

DB Schenker centralizes its innovation value chain with ITONICS Innovation OS, creating a collaborative platform for future-focused logistics solutions.

See the results

KPMG’s Global Innovation Platform

KPMG Illuminate, powered by ITONICS, connects global KPMG innovation leaders to co-create ideas, driving business growth and delivering value for clients through a collaborative innovation ecosystem.

See the results

Implementing a company-wide innovation culture with ITONICS

KSB drives cultural transformation with ITONICS, engaging 7,000+ employees and generating 1,100+ ideas on a global innovation platform, shaping the future of industrial solutions.

See the results

Innovate Everywhere Challenge powered by ITONICS

Cisco’s Innovate Everywhere Challenge, powered by ITONICS Innovation OS, engages 50,000+ employees, fostering a startup mindset through competition and best-in-class corporate innovation practices.

See the results

KPMG’s Global Innovation Platform

KPMG Illuminate, powered by ITONICS, connects global KPMG innovation leaders to co-create ideas, driving business growth and delivering value for clients through a collaborative innovation ecosystem.

See the results

A blueprint for systematic innovation management

ŠKODA AUTO revolutionized its innovation strategy—discover how in this Innovation Rockstars podcast, where we uncover their systematic approach to innovation management.

Tune in

Grinding corporate innovation at Citi

Citi Ventures & Citi’s innovation ecosystem take center stage as Bob Petrie shares insights on the venture-investment interplay in corporate innovation and fintech.

Tune in