Innovation is sought after by most businesses. It is an aspiration of companies seeking to be leaders and brands of choice. But, the sad truth is that much of what is touted as innovation is often simply a desire to be ahead of the curve and too frequently represents incremental product and service benefits or features rather than real innovation.
Innovation signals that a company is able to break into the marketplace, generate impressive sales and draw top talent and investors, all while continuing to be relevant and successful for the foreseeable future. “Innovation is more than something ’new and improved,’ but rather represents a completely different approach to solving a problem or creating a gain,” says Patricia Newcomb, director of Ohio’s Small Business Development Center at The Entrepreneurs Center.
Equally important, innovation is tied to both attracting new customers and retaining existing customers, particularly with today’s intense competition in most every category. “We know if you want buyers to make a change, particularly if they have not purchased from you in the past, you have to provide something dramatically better than the current competition,” explains Bruce Hall, CMO of Eureka! Inventing.
Establishing a culture and process to support innovation is one way to prepare a business to compete. “Startup companies are great sources of innovation because they are lean, agile and able to test user and maker hypotheses more quickly,” Newcomb says.
Innovation was more than just a possibility to these entrepreneurial ventures – they did it:
- Rent the Runway created a new fashion retail model by offering people the ability to rent top designer labels for one-time use, making haute couture available to a wider audience
- WeWork introduced and popularized social and hip shared workspaces that provide community activities, mutual business promotion and shared services, which have become especially attractive to millennials, freelancers and entrepreneurs
- Teledoc was the first to provide on-demand remote medical care via mobile devices, the internet, videoconferencing and phone, thereby offering greater access to healthcare for the uninsured, people with busy schedules or those living in remote areas
- Kickstarter created the platform for global crowdfunding, which revolutionized fundraising and evened the playing field for individuals and smaller ventures
Failure fuels innovation.
The difference between fostering innovation in small vs. large companies is perhaps best described in terms of the role failure plays in corporate culture, explains Newcomb. Large companies…