8 reasons why innovation is important to businesses today

Organizations who see & act upon the opportunities and possibilities for change through innovation in the current volatile and uncertain, business environment will not only survive; they will successfully compete and even flourish in the face of the range of emerging adverse and fluctuating business and economic conditions.

They will use innovation as a strategic, systemic, human centred & technological lever for developing agile innovation cultures, accountable business management processes and global industry eco-systems.

Doing this will ensure that their people develop the creative confidence; the self assurance and belief and the ability to come up with creative ideas and the courage to try them out, and collaborate to affect the desired changes in the world around them.

What are the core business benefits?

This enables them to achieve a range of key business outcomes including;

– Engaging and inspiring people to tap into the power of the internal crowd, and empower people to create, invent and innovate new products, processes and services.

– Increasing their ROI to shareholders,

– Achieving business growth goals and improving bottom line results,

– Increasing business value making the business attractive to shareholders, mergers and acquisitions,

– Making productivity and efficiency gains to increase profitability,

– Competing successfully to respond to industry disrupters, increase market share and extend product lifecycles,

– Responding quickly by developing the internal capability in both human and technology resources to change direction and do things differently.

How else can innovation save the business world?

Here are the top 8 reasons,

1. The word is full of problems that are hard to solve and aren’t going away

Albert Einstein famously said that “we cannot solve the problem with the same thinking we used when we created them”.

So simple conventional linear planning and problem solving processes using the same thinking that created some of these undesirable problems in the first place aren’t not going to result in the visionary, creative ideas and innovative solutions required to solve them.

The first thing about understanding innovation is that it is, in essence about seeing, perceiving and solving problems in creative ways! It requires a sense of urgent passionate purpose and visionary dreaming and thinking to play with solving wicked problems so as to improve the quality of people lives and the way we live.

2. Adapting to Black Swan Events

Black Swans are random and unpredictable events that cannot be anticipated and require us to find new ways of responding and adapting to them, and their impact, when they happen.

So be-ing innovative involves be-ing willing and competent in adapting and in knowing how to think differently. Knowing both how to think analytically and laterally as well as knowing how to think at the critical, creative and associative levels. To see and solve problems and to respond to Black Swan Events and external crises in different ways to transform them into creative ideas and innovative solutions that people value and cherish.

3. Taking advantage of the global entrepreneurship movement

Entrepreneurship is becoming a global movement and entrepreneurship is growing especially in emerging markets, where China and India are leading the pack and Africa is predicted to be the next hot spot. There are three particularly “Hot” sectors that include people who really want to ‘both’ take self responsibility for their futures, by contributing towards making the world a better and more sustainable place ‘and’ make a difference via the social, women and youth sectors. This movement is being powered by governments realizing that entrepreneurship is a vehicle of economic success and prosperity, by organizations realizing that they can harness the collective genius of their people through building an entrepreneurship capability and finally by the rise of new impact investors. Innovation is an enabler of entrepreneurship as well as a way of empowering and enabling people to take control of their lives and manifest their own destiny and economic prosperity.

4. Competing via blue ocean possibilities with lean & agile start-up methodologies

In their book Blue Ocean Strategy research proves that there are no permanently excellent companies, and that organizations, like people, all do smart and less smart things. They suggest that what matters is making smart strategic moves and that the strategic move that matters centrally is to create ‘blue oceans’ of disruptive, new and uncontested markets.

The emerging business paradigm is shifting towards discovering blue oceans that incorporate lean and agile start-up methodologies as a way of innovating businesses to create increased value for customers that they value and cherish.

5. Flowing with advances in technology

The advance of digitization enabled largely by the internet of things has created the connection and sharing of data between digital devices, ranging from household devices and heating systems to automobiles, and even jet engines. This connectivity and the resulting aggregation of data is creating entirely new business models and revenue streams, both for startups and established companies that leverage existing assets in exciting, profitable new ways. It also is changing the basis of competition as companies can now compete as part of ecosystems. The increasing availability and accessibility to free and low cost online education is encouraging and enabling almost anybody with a desire for learning and a hunger for knowledge to become subject matter experts in their fields.

Innovative entrepreneurs and lean start-ups are proliferating by via the internet of things, always connected mobile devices, cloud computing and via the social media. Especially by the development of software applications aimed at improving the quality of people’s minds and lives everywhere.

6. Adapting to changing workplace dynamics and trends

As more baby boomers retire and conventional succession planning processes become obsolete, the ageing demographic globally is the new tidal wave incurring financial demands on already exhausted financial systems. Millennials are also swapping jobs at increasing rates as they seek more meaningful work, autonomy and equality. Hiring processes are shifting as more recruiters rely on internet based social processes where ‘reputation’ is fast becoming more important to professionals and companies alike. Freelancing and contracting are becoming a way of life, meaning that more people are working from home, taking responsibility for generating their own income and wealth. They are also operating more from co-working and collaborative work environments. This means they are networking and teaming to share and gain knowledge, skills and experience.

These factors are forcing organizations to explore innovative strategies for enhancing staff engagement, empowerment and enablement as well as with the acquisition and retention of the best talent.

7. Responding to increasing customer expectations and choices

There are significant changes required as to how we perceive and sense customer’s needs, wants and expectations as they too, adapt to, are empowered by the increasing speed and proliferation of choices available in our increasingly connected and digitized world. Their focus is on receiving value that demonstrates that companies understand and empathize with them and support their lifestyle choices.

Noting that customers have never had more control over who they are, what they do, and importantly, what, how and where they buy! Increasing consumer expectations and choices are impacting organizations to become increasingly customer centric through innovative change. By using human centered design to improve the users (our) experience provides increased value and new ways to create and invent products and services as well as to execute plans in ways that people value and cherish.

8. Maximizing globalization connectivity 

The current wave of globalization has been driven by policies that have opened economies domestically and internationally as a result of many governments adopting free-market economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive potential and creating new opportunities for international trade and investment. Whilst reducing barriers to global trade and negotiating new international agreements to promote trade, in goods and services as well as in investments.

This trend allows true connectivity and collaboration to occur. It encourages anyone, anyplace at any time to develop an internet based business that leverages and builds scale via the application of lean methodologies. Coupled with the speed and pace of technological change, increasing availability of private funding and easing of government infrastructures and compliance factors make it easier for people to initiate low cost, internet based global businesses.

Conclusion

Being passionate and having a sense of urgent necessity making innovation a visionary and strategic and a systemic lever to effect business breakthroughs, changes, competitiveness, growth and value enables organizations to prosper and flourish in the age of disruption. These organizations will use innovation as the disruptive change mechanism to outperform their competitors, and create new markets by creating improved customers’ experiences.

By creating products and services that people value and cherish, by effectively using technology, by spanning generational and maximizing demographic diversity and by creating collaborative, creative and courageous work environments.

This is the new age of innovative entrepreneurs who envision and co-create new, audacious and abundant blue oceans who know how to be different, think and act differently to make the difference they want to make in the world in ways that people value and cherish.