Innovation Never Stops

It seems there is a new way of doing business being created every week. Disruptive, technology-driven, new business models are constantly being developed by the likes of Uber, Skype, Amazon, and Air BnB.

Your business might hold an established position in the market today but that doesn’t mean that you and your management team can be complacent.

Disruption and commoditization have impacted most industries and we are now seeing new players coming into traditional markets and establishing a disruptive model and capturing significant market share. This trend is only going to continue.

So what can you do, as the leader of your business, to minimize the impact of a potentially disruptive new player entering your market?

It is difficult to constantly create new products or services. However, perhaps you could consider how best to commoditize some of your firm’s existing product or service offerings in order to increase profit margin and efficiency. This could also help you to improve customer experience – by making your services faster, easier to access, and so forth.

When it comes to innovation, you don’t have to constantly re-invent the wheel. While creativity is usually associated with thinking outside the box, the fact is that few ideas are 100 percent original. The most brilliant (and often most profitable) business ideas are usually variations of an already existing theme rather than completely new concepts.

Netflix didn’t create a new industry. They just took the business model that had been so successful for Blockbuster Video and created a new way for customers to rent films – online instead of through a video shop. As Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” What sets creative people apart is that “they are able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

If you want to embrace innovation in your business, you need to develop an environment that encourages creativity. Your staff should be empowered to explore new ways of delivering products or services.

Experimentation should be encouraged and your office should have collaborative workspaces in order to allow people to sit down together, work as a team, solve problems collectively and create new solutions.  In addition to this, your business should celebrate innovation by recognizing those team members who find new ways of doing things. Whether that is a bonus for implementing a new innovation or perhaps celebrating the delivery of new innovations with a team night out. The key is to encourage your team to be creative, find new and better ways of doing things and keep innovating.