Business innovation management
Mark Sinclair

The benefits of innovation may have no relation to the size of the innovation itself

by

Innovation is simply the introduction of something new – e.g. knowledge, an idea, a method, a device or a technology. Innovation is at the heart of ongoing business and organisation success.  Business survival depends upon innovation, whether incremental or fundamental.  Importantly, the benefits of innovation may have no relationship to the size of the innovation itself.  Small changes to products, services or processes can sometimes deliver transformational business benefits.  So, business leaders need to be mindful of small changes that have the potential to deliver major benefits.

Business leaders should challenge themselves, their teams and their staff to innovate by questioning existing approaches to planning, resourcing, service, products, systems and technology and introducing new concepts, processes and ways of thinking. Innovation may be required to become the leader in a field.  Maybe, innovation is required to keep up with competitors.  Innovation may be small or possibly transformational.

As we have pointed out, an important point is that innovation can range from very small changes to major change.  The benefits of the change may have no relation to the size of the innovation and the level of work involved in implementation.  Very small changes can sometimes have business transforming effects.

Consider the successful organisations of today and the way they operate, the products they provide or the services they deliver.  We challenge you to identify any successful organisation that has not achieved its success through innovation – either as a leader of change or a follower.  On the other hand, there is a long list of organisations that no longer exist because of a failure to innovate effectively.

Here are some key questions to ask.

  • What creativity processes and tools do you use?
  • Do you have an innovation culture and, if not, how do you develop one?
  • How effective are your problem solving and decision making processes?
  • Have you performed a competitor analysis?
  • Have you searched for, and experienced, best practice?
  • How successful are you at converting ideas into results?
  • What processes do you have for idea generation and evaluation?
  • What attention are you paying to experiential activities – do you visit other markets, do you try to experience new technologies to understand potential uses and benefits?

Here is a reference to some ideas on innovation management.