Innovation is the new buzzword in business and entrepreneurship. Every day, we are listening to the story of geeks building world-changing technologies. But is that the only thing that can be defined as innovation. Does every business need technology geeks to be a truly innovative company?
NO, there are many more ways of innovation in business. As entrepreneurs, when we think about the word “innovation”, we often think of big words like – daring, risky, difficult, time-consuming etc. Sometimes, it becomes negative also because we perceive that innovation always take lots of energy, time, resources and efforts and we may not be able to manage in our hectic routine. These negative connotations can lead to lack of innovation.
As it is rightly said, “Innovate or Die” is the New Mantra for Business Success
To sustain in the competitive business environment, it is very important to foster innovation for worldwide growth and leadership. We have to think about the positives of innovation like; How innovation is making our business simpler and happier? How innovation can drive better profitability? How innovation will work and engage our customers in a better manner?
Innovation should be more about fun & feel-good factor. It is not always about making big changes with state-of-the-art technologies. It is also about making small changes that make a noticeable difference to the business operations. There are millions of things that we notice in daily life that requires to be changed for better. These little changes can be a small “thank you” note to all customers, faster response time for customers, answering customer complaints with empathy, and alike.
Is Innovation a part of your Business DNA?
Innovation is a buzzword in the industry but at the same time, there is an enormous gap between the result and reality. Here is the checklist to understand whether innovation is embedded in your business.
Ask a few questions to your mid-level employees –
- What kind of training you have received by seniors?
- Have you ever been trained as a business innovator?
- What tools and techniques are you using?
- What are the investments of company for your improvement?
- Do you think about experimenting with new ideas?
- How many hurdles you have got when you experiment with new things?
- Do your company consider innovation as an explicit work?
- Is innovation a part of your performance evaluation and compensation process?
When you ask this kind of questions to your employees and hear “NO” more than “YES”, it is clear that innovation is not considered as a company-wide process.
To apply innovative thinking, it is important to feel our customers, think as they think and get completely inside the head of the customer. We have to understand what makes the customer buy from us – is it travel, learning, speed, taste, entertainment or something else? Many sources of innovation come from insights of customer experiences. For example, Millennials have grown up with technology, they care less about materialism and more concerned about the experience involved in the buying process – “One small innovation can enhance the user experience of people, just think in the right direction.”
Interact More, Involve More – because everyone who interacts with you, buys from you, deals with you, will have ideas. Then, there is no limit to innovation except those set by our perceptions. I strongly believe that “the only way to fail is by not trying”.
Start Innovating with JC Ventures…!!