Technology solutions can have a profound effect on helping organizations to create innovative business breakthroughs. However, making decisions about which solutions to deploy can

be a challenge. Many choices exist and the pace of change never ceases to increase, making it difficult to make decisions to meet today's requirements and to also retain the agility to respond to the unknown business demands of tomorrow.

Companies who are considering the introduction of new technology-enabled business innovations need to get a first impression about possible usage and end-user reactions. An understanding is often required of new concepts, technologies and business models to see how they will shape their future business.

The HP Invent Centers apply a pragmatic approach to ensure that customers are able to quickly define a roadmap to achieve the overall business vision and establish a high-level of confidence that correct decisions are being made. Extensive use is made of 'rapid concept prototypes' to stimulate the innovation process. These prototypes enable a scenario-driven assessment of end-user experiences to be made and facilitate an exploration of the 'art of the possible' to show where technology solutions can have maximum impact.

A rich pallet of tools and technologies are used to create the prototypes. Importance is also placed on creating suitable environments, scenario-sets (i.e. end-user environment scenes, such as the home, office, mobile environments, public access locations, etc.) to evaluate these prototypes and to encourage further innovative thinking and consensus building amongst the executive groups. The prototypes have a profound effect on helping to visualize how certain technologies will be used and accepted in practice.