The age of the Internet of Things (IoT) has its advantages and its disadvantages in and of itself. Often it can be hard to keep up with the flow of technology when you’re just arriving at the point of adopting the most successful business tech. As the owner of your company, do you find yourself being more reactive than proactive? Many firms find themselves falling within this category, however, there is a way to quell this spiral. By employing mindfulness, an interruption to your current thinking, and innovative designs you will find yourself building back better than ever. Four types of business innovation can help you down this road to success.
Basic Research
Innovation does not have to begin with lofty ideas or expensive creations. The simplest way to begin with innovative thinking is through collaboration with other research-oriented entities. For instance, having an academic partnership with a local institution of higher learning or even going to a public library can provide solutions that you had not yet considered in your field. One of the major emerging technologies that are the highlight of recent journals and tech conferences is generative AI models. Trained in and driven by existing data, these algorithms can design content like images, audio, and text within seconds. Leverage your existing research division within your company to understand how artificial intelligence could benefit your marketing or production needs.
Breakthrough Innovation
When you move from reactivity to proactivity, your company can take the opportunity to disrupt from within. By incentivizing innovation through prizes and contests, your business has the potential to level up all by itself. This was the case for the automotive company, Zipcar which fostered a culture of mavericks within its ranks. By doing business differently than expected, you can encourage the already existing disruptors that you’ve hired to provide you with new designs they are already thinking about. Furthermore, you can incorporate this philosophy of bending rules for innovation within your company’s mission statement, aligning all of your goals with internal and market disruption.
Disruptive Innovation
Once you’ve selected which disruptions you want to incur, now is the time to define the domain in which you’ll perform the discord. Perhaps you will be the company that utilizes a low-cost business model to access an existing market and maintain a significant share. Or, better yet, you assert yourself in a new market segment by catering to an underserved or dissatisfied customer. Here are a few activities that will help to bring about the latest inventions for your company to meet the demands of these potential new markets:
- Working with a venture capitalist who invests seed money and R&D
- Uniting with innovation labs, accelerator programs, or incubators
- Using the 15%/20% rule where employees spend 15% of their time working on their own projects, a model made successful by 3M Company
- Performing user testing to understand how and what customers are thinking about your products and processes through a method called Lean Launchpad
Sustaining Innovation
This type of innovation is all about improving the company at the product level. One example of sustaining innovation is the development of laptops to rival personal desktop computers. Products that fall within this innovation category take much longer to develop than product subscriptions or bundles that you may find in breakthrough innovation. Instead, new profit-driven product and service design patents derive from tools like road mapping, where users draft a strategy that illustrates each action step required to bring an idea to completion. However, buying new tech through corporate mergers and acquisitions is also a great, though expensive, method for proactive change.
Now, in the age of innovation, there are few excuses for the lack of creativity in your product delivery. It is not simple but it is worthwhile to do your part to diversify your human resources with capable people and provide those people with inclusionary practices that will reinforce their desire to innovate on your behalf.
