The Power of Innovation: How to Develop and Implement Innovative Thinking Within Your Team

In today’s technology-driven world, businesses must constantly look out for new ways to stay relevant and capture new opportunities. A key factor in staying ahead of the game is having a solid understanding of how your organisation works. This insight will help you see where your business can grow, what needs improvement and what new ideas should be implemented. In other words, innovation is key to staying relevant as a business. If you have been wondering why you should incorporate innovative thinking into your day-to-day activities as a leader or manager in business, read on. You will get insights into the importance of innovative thinking in your organisation and examples of businesses incorporating it into their management style and operations.?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines innovation as “the act of inventing something new.” When applied to business, innovation is the process of introducing new ideas, methodologies, services or processes that can improve an organisation’s offerings. At its core, innovation is about breaking away from the traditional way of doing business and looking at new ways to create value. In other words, it’s about “seeing things differently” and challenging the status quo by thinking outside the box. It’s important to note that creativity goes hand in hand with innovation; there is no innovation without creativity. Creativity produces the ideas; innovation implements them.

Types of Innovation

1. Sustaining innovation occurs when a company wants to remain competitive and grow profits by selling edgier and better-performing products. It is a process of creating newer and better versions of your product to obtain higher profit margins. To sustain innovation, a company must already be successful in its industry.
2. Disruptive innovation usually occurs when a start-up firm with fewer resources enters the low end of an industry and creates a new segment. The initial step is to establish a new market or segment, claiming the least profitable portion as its own. Because the incumbent companies control the most lucrative sections of the market, they are most likely to ignore the entrant's advances. Ignoring the start-up’s advances allows it to improve its product or service and move upmarket, eventually achieving greater profit. Disruption occurs when customers of the bigger companies gradually begin to patronise the startup.

Importance of Innovative Thinking in Business?

Organisations that support their team members’ creativity are more likely to succeed than those that don’t. Innovative thinking can help organisations identify opportunities, create better solutions, and remain competitive in the market. By developing and implementing innovative thinking, business leaders can unlock their organisation's potential and help it remain ahead of its competition. Some benefits of developing innovative thinking in your business include the following:

• Improved productivity - Innovation in the workplace can lead to increased productivity, which can be critical to a company's success. For example, when a company adopts new technology, it can lead to greater efficiency. With innovation, companies can stay ahead of the curve and implement new technologies that improve efficiency.
• Better profit margins - Innovation increases the value of a product or service by offering consumers an improved or different product or experience. Therefore, innovation can increase profits by reducing costs per unit, increasing demand for a product, or improving the product itself. Innovation can also make a company more profitable by reducing business costs.?
• Highly sought-after brand image - When looking at the long-term benefits of innovation, the first thing that comes to mind is increased market value. Innovation helps to improve the market value of a brand. It also creates value for the business by improving the brand's image. Innovation can change perceptions, and changing perceptions can change opinions.
• Uniqueness and novelty to the business process -This can be achieved by improving the workflow process by adding innovation in one specific area. For instance, if your team is responsible for purchasing supplies, they can innovate by purchasing materials in bulk to save money rather than purchasing small quantities. Innovation in the workflow can give the company an edge over its competition and help it become more profitable.?
• Better employee engagement - Innovation in the workplace can increase employee engagement. This happens when employees feel their work has a purpose and their company trusts them. To engage employees, you have to show them that you trust them. This can be done through innovation activities like co-creating new products, allowing room to fail or make mistakes, processes, or services. Another way to increase engagement is to provide employees with new tools so they can work smarter.

The Business Analyst’s Strategy for Developing Innovative Thinking

The business analyst adds value to an organisation by acting as the specialist team who understands the business needs or problems, its goals and objectives and should be able to advise on the use of technology to drive business change.

To ensure your business understands how to implement innovative thinking within its processes, let’s understand how the Business Analyst encourages creativity within the team. This list will help you understand what steps are necessary for implementing innovative thinking within your organisation.

Understand the current state of affairs

If you want to know what your organisation should do to be more innovative, the first step is understanding the current state. Understanding the current state of affairs is the foundation for creating new ideas and deciding why they should be implemented within your organisation. If you don’t know where you are starting from, you can’t possibly know where you want to go.?

Document New Ideas?

After you understand where your organisation is today, the next step is developing new ideas to implement. This is the part where you map out your new vision for the future and explain it in a way that everyone within your organisation understands. If you aren’t clear on what your organisation should change or why it should change, new ideas are unlikely to be implemented. Additionally, if management or stakeholders aren’t clear on what your organisation is trying to accomplish with new ideas, they would likely not be implemented.?

Bring New Ideas to Reality?

Once you’ve mapped out the new ideas and put them in writing, the next step is to make them real. This may involve facilitating idea-storming workshops, creating prototypes, experimenting with new ways of working etc.? It’s important to note that while new ideas are extremely important, they are only half of the equation. New ideas are worthless unless they are implemented in some way. That said, implementing new ideas is where many organisations fall short. It’s easy to get caught up in developing creative new ideas and lose sight of how they need to be applied.

Sustain and Maintain Innovative Thinking

To sustain and maintain innovative thinking, it is important to create a clear sense of direction, open communication and reduce bureaucracy. Additionally, instilling a sense of ownership and providing consistent recognition and rewards can help foster an innovative culture. Finally, eliminating projects and processes that don't work, tolerating a certain degree of risk and failure and encouraging interaction between departments are all important steps in creating and sustaining a culture of innovation.

Examples of successful businesses using innovative thinking.

Many organisations have successfully used innovative thinking to bring value to their customers. A few of them are listed below: -

1. ?FedEx - FedEx believes in being the best in class. In 1978, six years after it began operation, the first automated customer service centre was pioneered by Federal Express, which provides real-time package tracking. The company utilises one of the world's largest computer networks, along with telecommunications, to provide real-time package tracking for its shipments. They focus on providing an excellent customer experience rather than on staying competitive. They recently started using drones to deliver customers’ packages.?
2. Netflix - Netflix pioneered the radical innovation of streaming services over DVDs. This allowed its customers to watch Netflix's content online. They continue to improve their streaming services by introducing games to the platform and short movie clips that can be shared. This makes Netflix the most-visited internet site during non-working hours,
3. Airbnb - Airbnb makes it easy for property owners to rent out their homes or spaces to travellers looking for a place to stay. Using internet technology, it is able to appeal to travellers and charge a lower price than hotels; they have successfully made themselves a household name in hospitality.

Bottom Line

Innovation is the essential ingredient to sustained growth and development. It helps a business adapt to the ever-changing market environment. To implement innovative thinking within your organisation, it’s important to understand how to do it effectively. There is no single right way to develop innovative thinking in any organisation – it’s a mixture of many different elements. You can implement it in many ways, such as providing resources for employees to acquire new skills, introducing new management styles, and challenging outdated practices. Implementation is key to driving creativity and innovation, whichever approach you adopt.