Strategic innovation vs. sustaining innovation: Which strategy to use for your business?

You’ve probably heard of companies that excel in the world of business, but do you know what’s their secret?

The answer lies in innovation. Still, there’s much more to the word “innovation” than meets the eye.

For innovation to be prosperous and ongoing, it must be strategic. The emphasis is on must since strategic innovation calls for constant improvement and keeping up with the latest technology trends.

Yet, we need to separate it from “sustaining innovation”, which only results in short-term effects.??

Is there more behind strategic innovation vs. sustaining innovation, and which one would be a better option for your business?

Let’s find out.

What is strategic innovation?

Strategic innovation is an advanced business strategy that aims for constant growth, and most importantly, long-term results.?

Strategic innovation is also referred to as transformational innovation due to its game-changing nature.?

In other words, strategic innovation is accountable for creating breakthrough ideas in the form of new products, services, or business models that stay ahead of the curve and excite customers.??

What is an example of strategic innovation?

One of the examples of a company that successfully applies strategic innovation is Apple — known for its tech innovations such as the iPhone, MacBook, Apple TV, and others.

Apple is renowned for generating new ideas and developing cutting-edge products and services that bring the best user experience and create a competitive advantage.?

As of June 2007, when the first iPhone was introduced to the market, up until this day, Apple has released 15 iPhones so far — unveiling its latest iPhone 15 this September. Evidently, the company’s commitment to strategic innovation is the cornerstone of its success.

5 Keys to strategic innovation

In his podcast about strategic innovation, Tony Robbins talked about the 5 areas that people should focus on if they want to implement a strategic innovation culture in their business:

1. New voices — Employ people with different life experiences and perspectives to hear their ideas. As he says, “New voices will cause innovation to occur.”
2. New questions — “New questions give you new answers,” claims Tony. The key is to shift your focus to asking meaningful and inspiring questions. So, instead of saying, “Why can’t I succeed?”, say, “What can I do to achieve my goal?”
3. New perspectives — In order to be innovative, and most importantly, to bring your ideas to life, you need to recognize your customer needs. You can do that by using polls to get customer feedback, deliver quality customer service, measure customer satisfaction on a regular basis, and show empathy.
4. New passions — Being passionate about your startup ideas will bring you success, no doubt about that. Passion makes you more motivated and pushes you forward, even when you stumble upon obstacles along the way.?
5. New experiments — Don’t be afraid to try new things, and as Tony suggests, “Create for yourself a couple of skunkworks projects.” Develop a project and do some research, even if it’s just for the sake of having fun and trying out new things. Google spends about 25% of its time focusing on skunkworks projects, and guess what — Google Maps came out of that.

Strategic innovation vs. sustaining innovation

When talking about innovation, we must make a clear distinction between strategic innovation and sustaining innovation.?

As said earlier, strategic innovation is a breakthrough strategy that focuses on developing new things. It gives long-lasting results concerning customer experience, company growth, profit, etc.?

On the other hand, sustaining innovation is a less risky strategy that revolves around improving the existing products, services, or business models rather than introducing new ones to the customers.?

Sustaining innovation does not create new markets nor does it require many resources, as opposed to strategic innovation. In fact, companies using sustaining innovation tend to meet customer expectations to stay competitive on the market — but not in the long run.?

Strategic innovation vs. sustaining innovation: Which one should you implement?

Bear in mind that there is no right or wrong strategy that you can incorporate into your business. It all depends on your current business needs and objectives.

Strategic innovation helps you bring out new products, services, or business models, which aids the development of new markets and achieving deep-rooted outcomes.

As for sustaining innovation, it can help you stay relevant on the market as you redesign already existing products or services, using fewer resources.

That said, remember that each type of innovation calls for a specific development path in order to be a success.?

So, avoid the Frankenstein process and don’t incorporate strategic and sustaining innovation methods interchangeably. Instead, make sure you only implement those that meet the needs of either strategic or sustaining innovation.

#cakedotcom #innovation #strategy #strategicinnovation

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