The business landscape is continually changing everywhere in the world, and across all business niches. Growing competition, advancements in technology, the need for digital and on-demand services, among countless other factors mean that business owners need to think out of the box in order to stand out.
As businesses prepare for the year 2020, one must devise new strategies that will boost revenue and increase profit margins. The concept of business innovation cannot be overlooked if you are looking to get a high return on your investments.
This short guide will teach you how to be innovative in your business this new year.
What Is Business Innovation?
Business innovation can best be understood as taking steps and finding creative ways of making your business stand out from what your counterparts are offering. Business innovation creates suitable opportunities and conditions for your business to survive and thrive in saturated markets.
How Your Business Benefits from Business Innovation
A straightforward answer to this question is VALUE! Your ability to make your business or brand stand out from the crowd makes it unique and ultimately adds value to what you are offering.
Basic knowledge of business tells you that customers are easily attracted to brands and businesses that offer the most value. If you want your business to become a household name, then business innovation is where you should invest your resources in 2020.
What Does Business Innovation Entail?
Business innovation is a broad topic of discussion; however, we will highlight essential aspects to help you put things in perspective and get started right away.
There are a few business innovation models to consider when deciding the strategy you want to adopt. Ultimately, the aim is to arouse your customers and get them to choose you over your competitors.
Incremental Product Innovation
This model highlights ways of satisfying your customers by re-evaluating your offer. Even if your product is of the highest quality, your competition might be delivering higher value in the form of added benefits, a more modern design, or purchase experience.
For this model, you need to utilize the resources you have to increase the value of your brand to your customers. Consider aspects like packaging design, added benefits (a rewards card, for instance), a unique purchase experience (like the special ambiance of the store).
This model of business innovation is incremental – it increases your profit margin. Also, having that in mind, increasing your product or business value doesn’t have to drain your account. It could be a simple update or even the removal of some features (that are not yielding results) from what you already have.
If you can implement this model correctly, then your customers will have a better experience with your products, and you can conveniently drive your profits over the roof.
Instagram listened to customer’s need for live streaming and introduced the feature in 2016.
Disruptive Innovation
This model of business innovation is popularly known as stealth innovation. Why? This is mostly because of the approach involved. In this model of business innovation, you are expected to incorporate something new and often unusual into your business and wait for your breakthrough.
In simpler terms, you will incorporate a new process, or technology into your business. Initially, this approach may seem costly and may take a little time to get customers on board. However, over time, the hypothesis is that with some experimentation, people will begin to dump old brands and adopt your new idea.
By the time your competitors would realize what’s happening, it would be too late, and you have already gotten a head start trying this strategy in your market to support your offer. This makes it harder for them to compete with you, and you can relax and watch your account swell.
Ikea executed a Disruptive Innovation strategy when designing the Catalog App.
Radical Innovation
This model is a fascinating one and often, people use them without realizing that it’s what they are doing. This model helps to conceive new ideas that will engulf other options that are already in existence. Let’s consider transportation as an example. People have been travelling before we had airplanes; however, airplanes have revolutionized the global transport sector in terms of commercialization and customer satisfaction.
Like we mentioned earlier, there are countless innovation models (beyond the three we have discussed), you can adopt for your business. Identify what works for your brand and implement effectively.
Tesla took something that was already on the market (electric cars) and designed an innovative product that besides being environmentally-friendly, is modern and sylish.
Business Model Innovation!
To conclude on the topic of business innovation models, you can think of forming new partnerships, outsourcing some tasks to enable you to maintain focus, invest in new technologies to increase productivity – all together, these form A Business Model Innovation
How about changing the industry in which you are currently operating and forming a new one for yourself? These are all options you can consider, and it will be even more delightful if you create something unique for your company.
If you stick to one method of doing things and running your business, you will be pushed out of the market pretty soon. You have to continually search for ways to improve and deliver nothing short of the best.
Business Localization Services
Localizing your business is another innovative approach you should consider as you make plans to explore greater opportunities in the global market. Localization services will help announce your business to your intended customers.
Another vital area where localization services are of great importance is in the area of product publicity. They can provide translation services, and customize your product for the international market. You will be able to communicate in local dialects, meet cultural, legal, and business requirements.
How to Be Innovative Within a Profitable Business Model
This is a question that is always making the rounds every time this topic is discussed. To begin with, you must identify the area in which you want to improve. Having done that, you will have to design a plan and embark on research.
Your research should help you identify gaps that need to be filled and what your customers would like you to do differently. It doesn’t have to be you doing all the work, ask your customers questions, observe their reactions, and even study your competition.
Marketing and Advertising
Marketing and advertising your business will help you reach wider audience and generate more sales. Innovative thinking in areas of advertising will go a long way to build a profitable and lasting relationship with your customers.
Thanks to advancements in technology, you can reach your global customer base without excessive spending. The internet has made things a lot easier!
Putting Your Customers First
Whatever business innovation model you decide to adopt, you will only achieve maximum impact if you consider your customers first – after all, they are the end consumers.
They are your primary target, and whatever decision you make should reflect their interest and utmost satisfaction at all times. Business innovation is a learning process, and you get better at it with time – there are no shortcuts!
As you prepare to gain an edge over your competition and make your business or brand stand out in 2020, we hope that this article equips you with all you need to succeed.