Value is something’s significance, worth, or utility. What do you value while looking at your company? Is it for profit? Is it client fulfillment? Value can take many different forms, and each will be particular to a given company.
Some would contend that innovation is the only true way to produce value. And that might not always happen by bringing new products to market or changing course into a different market. Innovation involves a broad ecosystem and frequently extends beyond your business alone; it is not a stand-alone activity connected to one department, like T&D.
That implies there are many different methods to create value, and doing so can profoundly alter how a business functions both internally and externally.
Here are a few distinct ways that innovation might assist you in generating value for your company.
1. Making quick decisions
Time, whether it be employee time, design time, production time, etc., contributes significantly to a company’s worth. However, a corporation wastes a lot of time. How can you maximize both your own and your staff’s time?
Examine your choices at the same time to see how they affect the business. The four Rs – relevance, responsiveness, resilience, and resourcefulness – are a smart way to approach this.
* Relevance: What makes this topic important?
* What alternatives are there for responsiveness? How will they be felt?
* Resilience: What potential disruptions might occur?
* Resourcefulness: How can you use your resources most effectively?
They will ultimately save you time and add value if you can respond to them in a timely and efficient manner.
Your firm can benefit from innovation in many different ways. However, open innovation, agile decision-making, empowerment, and risk-taking can help to drive your business to sustained and long-term growth. You must decide what would be best for your company and how to implement that strategy.
2. Empowerment
A motivated team is essential for innovation. A successful leader will instill empowerment rather than fear in their team. Everyone will work toward the same goal if there is a clear target that applies to all departments.
Even if you must promote empowerment, it cannot simply be taken for granted. To effectively respond to client input or identify market needs, you must foster an environment where employees are inspired and driven to solve challenges on their initiative and drive.
By providing platforms and avenues for empowerment, Google has done this exceptionally successfully. Google Moderator is an innovation management tool that allows anybody to ask a question, Google Café promotes cross-departmental communication, employees can contact business executives directly, and TGIF is Google’s weekly all-hands meeting where anything is up for discussion. It goes on and on!
Employees are more likely to get involved if they believe they can help solve an issue and add value thanks to these solutions, which promote empowerment.
3. Risk-taking mindset
Risk-taking is not innate in everyone, and not all innovations are successful. However, they are related. And taking risks adds value. While many people are afraid of failing, you must have the courage to take a risk and attempt something new.
A popular product or service offered by several businesses performs well for a while, yet it lacks value. When a competitor offers a cheaper or better alternative, your business will become comfortable and stuck due to its reliance on a single product or service.
The king of taking chances is Richard Branson. If not Virgin Records, it’s Virgin Start Up, which offers to finance to business owners who take personal risks in beginning new ventures.
Branson created Virgin Records at a period when the record market was almost impenetrable, which was a significant risk. To make it work, he signed obscure or contentious actions, which was against the norm at the time. But it was fruitful.
Finally, he made the calculated risk of selling Virgin Records to keep other businesses afloat. Since then, he has launched Virgin Galactic, an organization that seeks to commercialize space travel. Another tremendous risk, once more. Your business will never become complacent if it can continuously innovate or adapt.
4. Honest dialogue
How can an SME effectively innovate and disrupt its environment? Innovation and communication are both worldwide in the era of the internet, cloud computing, smartphones, and microchips. Tesla demonstrated this in 2015 by sharing its patent portfolio with the public and providing access to them.
Although this could be perceived as a negative action for a small firm, Tesla concluded the potential progress outweighed the company’s possible harm in terms of the automobile manufacturing industry. To build on what it had already accomplished to promote innovation and future value, Tesla wants to inspire others to innovate.
This unexpected action shocked the corporate community but added value in a variety of ways for a large number of people. Additionally, Tesla benefited from a variety of new partnerships, greater use of charging stations, and media attention.
Conclusion
To add originality to current product lines or processes and enhance market share, revenue, and customer happiness, and innovation plays a critical role. Innovation can also be applied to modernize business operating systems or add automation technology.
