no need for new products = no innovation
There has to be a reason for innovation to take place. If there were no needs for new products, then there would be no need to develop new products or ideas.
There is a process that innovation has to take to flow smoothly. In this blog entry I will be delving into this process.
Identify the Problem: To begin with, there has to be a problem which needs fixing. If there is no problem, there is no need for innovative ideas. If there is a problem with any product/service, there is always the potential for innovation. There are many different problems that we as customers face on a daily basis. For example, train journeys being too long. East Midland Trains have the potential to innovate based on this problem and potentially come up with a solution. There must be a lot of time and effort put into innovation. One question I ask is, surely the process of innovation is time consuming? This is therefore a problem, so is there not an innovative way to improve the process of innovation? Confusing, I know.
Planning: Not all innovation is planned. Scientific innovation, yes. With business innovation, is is easy to create intentional innovation. Intentional innovation can have consequences that will not have been planned for. One problem with unplanned innovation is that it might not work.
Change: When innovating, you have to bring change to a bad situation. Even just improving this situation slightly, but not solving it at all is still an accomplishment. An innovator needs to ensure they have comprehensive knowledge of the problem and that they know how to solve this problem. They must ask themselves questions such as ‘How can this benefit the customers?’ and ‘Is this solution really feasible?’. If no change comes out of this ‘solution’, then the problem has not been solved, and therefore it will not be classed an innovative. Innovation would have been used when trying to come up with the solution, but it will not have been successful innovation.
Costs: How much will this solution cost to implement? If the innovation is worth the money, and will eventually bring back a return in the money invested in this idea, then it is credible. It is always a risk investing money into an innovative idea, as no one can ever be sure of the consequences.
Opportunity: There has to be an opportunity to innovate. If I were a manager, I would ensure that my work force were mentally stimulated to ensure the best development for the creativity. After all, innovation is the birth child of creativity.
Advantage: Does this innovative idea give me some sort of advantage over my competitors? If yes, all systems are go. If no, it’s a no show.
Innovation does not have to follow a set process. Understandably, people can look back and think of ideas as to how they could have innovated better etc. But instead of looking back and having regrets, people should analyse how they did and use this to help them in future innovative quests.
If anyone is interested, this video is a presentation by the CIO at Google, talking about Innovation. Actually pretty interesting, take a look!
No comments:
Post a Comment