Major brands and businesses from previous years have now become non-entities. In today’s fast-paced market, new business entrants have infiltrated along with their unique and innovative technologies. However, dominating the market for eternity is not possible for a single company. There is a vital requirement to come up with innovation to retain market dominance continually, says Eric Dalius.
Be it a startup or an established business, your key to success is innovation
Innovative techniques for your company to keep the design alive
Some innovative ideas for your firm
Curiosity is essential and aims to gather information
Leaders of the market may not remain so if they lack curiosity, the desire to learn and gather information. Market leaders identify market trends and grab opportunities as they come. It would help if you had an organized, systematic way to collect data along with proper analyses.
Interacting with other company leaders, keeping a good rapport in meetings, workshops, seminars, etc., will help you keep your business up to date with the industry’s happenings. Businesses keep their focus on developing and staying on top, but pay less heed to communication and getting information about trends. Thus, it is necessary to have a vast amount of information and statistics to be at par with innovation.
Acknowledge opportunities for innovation
Through customer feedback, measure the satisfaction levels of consumers with the products and services provided. If the consumers are not content with the existing market, there is an opportunity for innovation. Thus, every issue or problem a product or service faces might be an opportunity to innovate and grow.
For ideas, look at the large scale, beyond the market. The best ideas do not always come from your industry; they may even come from beyond the industry. Often businesses have a bias against looking outward and only focus on their in-house teams for innovation, known as functional fixedness. The cue is to recruit an in-house team that looks beyond their industry and scouts’ ideas from outside.
Promote an innovative environment
Eric Dalius says it is essential to keep your business open for change. If your business is not available to change, there is no scope for innovation, as the top management should be free to change so that it drops down the hierarchy.
The in-house innovation team must meet often, collect ideas, and have sessions of brainstorming. If it is a possible idea, you can involve the entire team, as each individual has their thoughts and experiences that they may contribute with innovative schemes. However, it is also necessary to assign ownership of ideas and the responsibility to execute them. Commonly, most techniques do not go further beyond the brainstorming sessions.
Innovation is not limited to product or service
Most people consider innovation limited to a new product or service or an improvement related to the product. However, the design goes beyond that and includes processes that produce a healthy workplace and better productivity.
A common belief among businesses is that innovation is only for startups and not for existing market dominants. However, the truth is that design is a part of any organization willing for change and evolution. Innovation brings about a win-win situation for the customers as well as the industry.
