The difference between successful and thriving
businesses and retrogressive and unsuccessful businesses is their ability to spot opportunities for innovation and use them to drive
business growth.
Read more about Business
Successful businesses have a nose for seeing opportunities to drive innovations when others aren’t seeing such. I’ve discovered that thriving businesses don’t just jump in on innovation; they observe and see tangible reasons to innovate. In an ever-changing business world, leading businesses, whether giant corporations or SMEs, operate under a flexible structure so that they can tweak, adapt quickly, and even carry out innovation that drives growth, rather than operating under a rigid flow.
In this article, I’m going to highlight five ways to spot innovation opportunities to advance business growth.
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Identical Businesses
One of the best ways to spot opportunities for innovation is to identify what other innovative businesses are adopting for advancement. In this respect, it’s advisable to consider companies that are both in your industry, but in a different geography and companies that are outside your industry, but are known to be innovation-driven. Understand the reasons for their adoption of certain innovations and see how you can adopt and replicate same in your business. For example, there are businesses who’re industry leaders when it comes to innovation. When you spot the big fishes going left, it’s advisable to do same.
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Look Out For Trends
Companies who fail to innovate will perish. Worst still, businesses who operate in isolation or in a bubble will either suffocate to death out of frustration or will decay due to their inability to stay fresh. One of the things I’ve observed about successful businesses is that they fly on the wings of information from several quarters and the visible changes in their industries. They understand the rush and strong momentum of the marketplace. For example, in this present age, there’s is a strong trend towards online education, virtual learning and virtual service delivery. It’ll be folly not to join the trend. As a matter of fact, if you’re an SME holder, and even if most of your customers are online-inclined, it’s unwise not to take your business digital. Who knows, you might get to discover new markets. Furthermore, it’s advisable to read business publications and attend webinars to get the perspectives of industry experts and stakeholders.
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Business Customers Feedback
Opportunities to innovate comes from business customers who either hate or love your company. Feedbacks from lovers and haters are very crucial for spotting opportunities to innovate. Sometimes, you might hear
customers negatively comparing you to your competitor. It’s not a time to be pained or down, it’s a wake-up call. Criticisms are wake-up calls for companies to innovate. Through criticisms or praises, you’ll know what new product or service to offer, new support or ‘value-added’ options and ways to better manage and service these customers.
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Customers’ Needs
Customers’ needs can be captured into several ways – complaints, frustrations, and concerns. At some point, your customers will experience either of this with your product/service. For example, your product might have promised convenience and speed, but customers are not seeing such in your product. Better still, as a businessperson, you can find out from customers what they want to see in your product/service. As a tip, in this present day business world and marketplace, customers place premium attention on products/services that are convenience and safety assured.
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Call To Action
The previous discussions have been able to point to you how to spot opportunities for innovation in your business. This last section is on how you can collaborate all the abovementioned opportunities and turn them into tangible execution to get desired results.
First, findings drawn from each opportunities should be discussed among company leadership, employees and stakeholders. Second, opportunities should be transformed into call-to-action approaches. Third, each unit in the company should be given a responsibility in executing findings. Each unit such as quality control, sales and marketing, production, etc. should be adequately carried along and held accountable. Fourth, there should be reconvention of company employees, leadership and stakeholders – whether at various levels or general assembly – where results are examined. Discussions should often centre around company values and sustainability.
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This article was first published on 8th October 2021
nnaemeka-emmanuel
Nnaemeka is an academic scholar with a degree in History and International Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is also a creative writer, content creator, storyteller, and social analyst.
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