Business Innovation
By- G. Sandhiya.
Innovation is the only way to win — Steve Jobs
“Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” Innovation is process that has a great idea, executed brilliantly, and communicated in a way that is both intuitive and fully celebrates the magic of the initial concept. Innovative ideas can be big or small, but breakthrough or disruptive innovation is something that either creates a new category, or changes an existing one dramatically, and obsoletes the existing market leader. Innovation in all human areas is applicable from product development, methods of management, ways of doing works and etc. innovation is really about responding to change in a creative way. It’s about generating new ideas, improving processes or revamping products and services. It’s something which is constantly thinking outside of the box.
when other entrepreneurs have made or are making their mark. Innovation can be a larger-scale venture where a new product or service, such as Google, has changed fundamentally how we do business. Or it could be a low-cost internal initiative such as improving a process in a business that can lead to dramatic savings in overhead costs.
An important thing to remember about innovation is that it should increase company’s value in the marketplace.
There are many types of innovations that can be implemented in business
• New ways to get company’s product to clients
• A new design to respond to customer demands
• Improved use of technology to update company’s ordering processes and improve interaction with suppliers and customers
• A more efficient plant layout to lower company’s production turnaround time
• The design of products that meet green standards
• An increase in company product or service range to reach more targeted customers
• A new concept or a new way of doing business
In a highly competitive business environment, companies can no longer compete simply on tangible assets such as the latest equipment, or by offering the lowest cost to customers. The ability to innovate also affects your market potential and provides you with a means of competing against emerging markets, a shrinking force and accelerated technological change. In fact, innovation has become a key strategy to attract and retain company’s customers in a fickle market.
The core of innovation in a company is really it’s staff and their attitude. Smart businesses encourage their employees to think creatively, always. For example, set up a means for employees to bring their innovative ideas to the table, whether it’s a suggestion box, employee forums or face-to-face meetings to brainstorm ideas. Or to appoint an “innovation” champion who can spearhead innovative initiatives and follow up on them; this encourages accountability.
Innovation Capital
Innovation capital refers to explicit organizational knowledge residing in an organization’s intellectual property, business designs, business process techniques, patents, copyrights and trade secrets (among other factors) which enables organizations to build a competitive advantage either through economies of scale and scope or differentiation
Innovation capital consists of four factors:
1. Who you are (innovation-specific human capital) — your capacity for forward thinking, creative problem-solving, and persuasion
2. Who you know (innovation-specific social capital) — your social connections with people who have valuable resources for innovation
3. What you’ve done (innovation-specific reputation capital) — your track record and reputation for innovation
4. The things you do to generate attention and credibility for yourself and your ideas (what we call impression amplifiers). Politicians with political capital can get others to join them in pursuing their objectives; in a similar fashion, business leaders with innovation capital can attract the resources needed for innovation to flourish.
Elon Musk is a master of building and using innovation capital to win support for his ideas. Not only does he leverage his past success at Paypal and Space X to win support for future projects, he also uses what we call “impression amplifiers” to get stakeholders on board. For example, when Musk stands on stage and reveals the Cybertruck, he doesn’t just talk about the new idea, he materializes it, putting it into physical form to convince skeptics (he also did this when he parked a Space X rocket in front of the National Air and Space Museum). He also broadcasts the idea through big media launches like the demo for the Cybertruck, which gets third parties talking about the company and generating buzz
Some of the problem faced by people to inhibit their ability to innovate and solutions to tackle those.
1. Fear
The single biggest reason why most organizations and individuals do not achieve their full potential is fear of failure. There are no guarantees that any new idea will work. We must accept failing is an important part of learning, development and progress.
“People demand innovation: something no one has done before. But they also want to know for sure it will work. Which of course makes no sense at all.” -Ken Burnett
2. Lack of focus
If an organization is not clear on where to focus, it can easily spend time on activity that won’t make a difference. It’s easy to become distracted by new products and new technology, but if it isn’t helping you achieve your mission then you should not be investing time and resource in it.
“Lots of people doing stuff is not really innovation if it isn’t the right stuff” -Ben Welch
3. Lots of ideas, no delivery to market
Having ideas is not a problem for most organizations, but having relevant ideas and progressing them can be incredibly hard.
“The sticking point is that people say they want to be innovative. They come up with ideas and then don’t do anything” -Craig Linton
4. No clear process
A process is critical to filter and drive ideas forward, yet only 32% of those surveyed have a clear process in place for innovation.
“So many ideas slowly die in organizations as they don’t have a structure or processes for taking ideas forward” -Craig Linton
5. Ack of urgency
Despite significant changes to the funding landscape and the economic environment, charities are not responding with urgency to change. Perhaps they believe that if they do Nothing they will be OK, or it seems too difficult to think strategically with so many immediate day-to-day pressures.
Business has only two functions, marketing and innovation. -Milan Kundera.
