Top 10 techniques Innovation in Business

Whether you are a start-up or an established firm, innovation is the key to success. Here are some techniques to keep the innovative spirit live in your organization and keep your market share intact.

1. Be curious and gather more information

Market leaders can’t remain market leaders unless have the curiosity to learn, gather more information, identifies market trends, tries to spot new opportunities by looking at the competition. There must be a systematic way to gather information, analyse and apply them to business.

2. Recognise innovation opportunities

Understand the pain points of existing customers with your products or with that of the competitors. If the industry is not satisfied with existing offerings, there is an innovation opportunity lying dormant. Therefore, every problem or crisis a product faces in the market is an opportunity to innovate and succeed. A stapler is a useful product to help hold your papers together but what if you have more than 12 papers to organize. Conventional stapler pins can’t hold more than a dozen papers. That’s when Accentra Inc, the Pennsylvania based office products company developed the PaperPro that helps to pin 60 papers together. The founder of the company, Todd Moses observed that there was no fundamental change in the product for the past 100 years and that prompted them to develop the new product which is now selling millions of units per in more than 100 countries. PaperPro’s example is proof enough that consumers are looking for function and fashion in products they buy.

3. Look broader, beyond industry for ideas

Most often the best ideas for innovation need not come from your own industry but from other industries. Henry Ford got the idea of a moving assembly line from the meat processing industry and that changed the whole dynamics of automobile industry not only by way of volumes but also in terms of deployment of labour.

4. Foster an innovation environment

Does your business want to do the business the way it has always done. Or is it open to change. For example, a company that has always done the ‘brick-and-mortar’ business may lose out if the trend is changing to a mix of online business with in-store trading. If the top management is not open to change, it will percolate down the hierarchy. And innovative ideas won’t come up.

5. Innovation need not be about products but workplace also

Most people think of innovation with respect to developing a new product but fail to recognize that better processes and practices within the organization can raise productivity and profits for the firm. A bad workplace atmosphere can lead to lower employee motivational levels and lower output for the firm. Google realized that workplace should not be filled with dull cubicles and walls. Google offices have play areas, coffee bars, open kitchens, crèches, themed conference rooms, libraries and several other innovations with the objective of providing a happy environment to boost productivity.

6. Run a contest, scout for ideas from colleges

The technology and management schools have incubators that help students to come up with project ideas from solar energy, to waste management to new products using robotic technology. Some companies run contests for the public or in professional colleges and offer monetary rewards. The best ideas can become be licensed and commercialized.

 7. Good ideas can come from the customers

By having an open communication with the customers, you can understand their pain points or dissatisfaction’s which could help you develop a better service or process. To begin with, there should be an understanding whether they really want a change in the product or service. Don’t innovate for the sake of innovation. Customer surveys, social media and market research would help reveal what changes are required by the customer.

8. Be futuristic and have visionary attitude

Innovation thrives only in organisations that have a futuristic view and leaders should have a vision. In late 1970’s, Ken Olsen of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was doubtful if household’s would buy personal computers. Now it is common place, and DEC is no more. It was acquired by Compaq and subsequently Compaq was acquired by HP.
DEC promoter found home PC an impossibility. Sometimes, it requires courage to pursue ideas that look impossible or risky.

9. Know how to deal with innovator’s dilemma

Many organisations face the prospect of launching a new product that is radically different from its existing offering but can’t abandon it. IBM’s mainstay was mainframe computers and even when it launched personal computers, it retained its strength in mainframes.

10. Disruptive technologies and changing trends

When Google and other search engines implemented algorithm changes and took the focus away from key words that led to destruction of several websites which thrived on copying or rewriting content based on popular keywords. New technologies or process can be disruptive but ultimately it helps the mass consumer. Google’s effort was to ensure the best search results for the internet users while some disruptive technologies led to better convenience for consumers.

Source : https://www.educba.com