What Can Innovation Do For You? Let’s explore some compelling opportunities

The word “innovation” can be defined in many ways. The size of your company, industry sector, and even leadership team members will impact your definition. Before you can determine what innovation can do for you, you’ll need to agree on what it actually is. Reaching that agreement can be a challenge for many business leaders and their teams. As input to those discussions, this document will provide some compelling opportunities that may help. It may be easier for some teams to agree on what they’re trying to achieve, then create their definition from there.

Reduce Costs

Applying innovation to existing business processes can significantly improve their efficiency and therefore reduce costs. A small change in a process could be labeled as “continuous improvement” while a radical change could provide the innovation you’re looking for. Remember, not all innovation is outward facing. Innovations could also be inward facing, as when existing processes are improved, incoming ideas are managed and innovation projects become more successful. 

Some internal processes may be so broken and fragmented, that starting over is the only cost effective approach. Starting over is another way innovation can be introduced, often without the accompanying change management or transformation work. If the process improvement work produces an innovative result, there are others who might want to pay for that same result, thereby increasing revenues.

Increase Revenues

Any innovative improvement could be leveraged into a revenue generating situation. Other companies in the same industry, or in other industries, might be compelled to pay for access to an innovative solution or even pay to own it. Regardless, there are potential benefits to exploring how any internal innovation could be leveraged elsewhere. Revenues can also be increased through the design, development and production of a new, innovative product or service. This is a more traditional view of innovation, but one certainly worth repeating here.

Enhance Customer Relationships & Loyalty

Whether they’re called customers, clients, patients, guests, or something else, without them you’re not going to be in business for long. Any company that brings new and exciting products or services to market, is one that most people want to be associated with. Innovating internal processes and technologies that make it easier to do business will also create an attractive option for customers. Attracting new customers, selling more to existing ones, or enhancing the loyalty of those you already have will pay dividends through innovation.

Attract Better Employees

People want to work for companies that are exciting places to work. The use of social media today makes it very difficult for any company stuck in the day-to-day, status quo mentality to shine. Candidates now go online to see what others are saying about the companies they’re considering.   Once those candidates may become the employees you’re looking for, they can contribute their ideas, skills and personality to reinforce and grow the innovative results you need. They become the new employees who interact with customers and other employees to generate additional benefits for your company.

Entice Investment Dollars

Investors want to put their time and money into ventures that are expected to grow and provide a suitable return. Companies that are caught up in day-to-day operations, only doing what it takes to keep the lights on, are not very attractive investment options. Companies that have an innovation strategy and work to achieve their innovation goals, are the ones that attract investment dollars.

Improve Your Brand

Whether it’s called a brand, reputation or even goodwill, innovation can help improve it. The benefits of an improved brand can come from strengthening current and future relationships with employees, customers, vendors, stakeholders as well as the local community. Most people want to be associated with growing, exciting companies that offer innovative products or services that create a “marketing buzz” and get people talking. Current relationships will be strengthened leading to loyalty, while future relationships can help increase revenues.

Respond Faster to Opportunities

A company that’s designed to be innovative and aligned around innovation can also use that capability to be flexible and agile enough to take advantage of opportunities. Often, opportunities simply can’t be pursued by many companies. This can be due to their leadership team, processes, organization structure and other components that are not well positioned for a first-mover advantage in the marketplace. For example, if an innovative company is now conducting some type of ongoing research as part of their innovation strategy, then that information can also be a source of competitive, industry, and emerging technology information that could trigger a faster, innovative response.

Build a Better Culture

Company leaders who successfully align their organization around innovation will have addressed such components as; organization structure, leadership team, training, performance scorecards, skill management, job descriptions, reward & recognition programs, and even recruiting. Each of these components (as well as all the employees) contribute to the company culture. A better culture will attract better employees, and those employees will probably stay longer with the company. Customers who interact with a better culture will also stay longer, buy more, be happier, and tell their friends about their positive experience. Those friends then decide to engage with the company and the cycle continues.

Strengthen Partnerships

External business agreements and relationships with vendors, suppliers, service providers, and others can be strengthened as a result of innovation. Improved, innovative processes can make it easier and more cost effective to do business with a company. New, innovative products and services can make it more profitable for those involved in their design, development, production and ongoing support. People want to do business with companies they like and they have many choices today. Some of those choices involve boring, stagnant companies while others involve exciting, growing and innovative companies. Which choice is yours?

Receive Higher Valuations

Potential acquirers explore many aspects of a business when deciding on its value as well as which multiple they may, or may not, be willing to pay. Beyond the traditional sales revenues, customer base, and expenses are the intellectual property, innovative processes, innovative culture, and innovative products & services that can boost not only the valuation and the multiple, but the probability that the acquisition will actually take place.

Help Others

As more millennials (and others) flood the workplace and the marketplace, they consider social responsibility a factor when making employment, investment, and purchasing decisions. The financial and non-financial benefits realized from innovation can be applied, in part, to enhancing social responsibility and therefore, helping others. An innovation strategy is one component of an overall corporate strategy, so some discussion will be required to determine what to do with all those improvements in revenues, customers, employees, partnerships, and investment dollars. Those are the types of discussions we all wish for.

About Inovayshin

Companies of all sizes and industries have challenges when it comes to innovation. In response, we’ve created an innovation services firm that applies proven Innovation Alignment and other methods to help those companies improve and sustain their ability to innovate. Our solutions include the one-day Innovation Alignment Studio, Innovation Strategy & Roadmap, Innovation Roadmap Implementation, and Sustaining Innovation Solutions. To learn more, visit us at inovayshin.com. Entrepreneurs and business executives, be sure to check out our “Be Inspired” page for ideas that could trigger your next product or service innovation.