Episode D6.004 Look for Opportunities to Innovate

IBGR - RESULTS Radio Network. Everything a business owner needs to start, grow or exit a business. Come grow with us.

Introduction
While the mission, vision and values of businesses differ; all publicly traded companies share one thing in common, the objective to maximize shareholder value. This objective is accomplished through stock price appreciation and dividend payouts. Stock price appreciation offers the greatest opportunity to increase value for the shareholder.   This is where innovation comes in.

Show Objectives

1. Understand the history of Innovation
2. What is innovation and what does it mean?
3. Why does innovation matter?
4. What shifts leaders must make to encourage innovative ideas
5. How to make a leadership culture(a culture of innovation)

Key Issues

1. How did the issue of innovation start?
2. Where are we now?
3. How to be an innovative company.

What You Need to Do

1. Lead Courageously
2. Shift your leadership mindset
3. Encourage failure and mistakes in order to have innovation ideas.
4. HANDOUT: 5 Ways to identify Opportunities to Drive Business Growth
5. HANDOUT: 21 Great Ways to Innovate by Paul Sloane​

Shows
Previous: Episode D6.004 Look for Opportunities to Innovate
Next: Episode D6.005 Volunteer Innovative Ideas

Written by Cedrick LaFleur
“Talk Leadership with Cedrick”

​
5 Ways to Identify Innovation Opportunities to Drive Business Growth
posted on 4 SEPTEMBER, 2018
https://listeninnovategrow.com/5-ways-to-drive-business-growth/

Opportunities to innovate your start-up or SME can stem from using the listening tools I discussed in my previous blog and examining the following 5 sources:

1. Analogies
Examine what the best companies are doing in both your own industry as well as others. 
Try to identify:

• What kinds of innovation drove them to success?
• Are those innovations applicable to your industry?
• What could you do in the same way to create a market opportunity?

2. ‘Surging’ Trends
These are trends that are having strong momentum in the market.
Often indicating how a product or service is being delivered creates an industry-wide shift in preferences that business buyers quickly embrace. By identifying trends early, you can identify ways to innovate and meet business buyer needs.

For instance, larger businesses needing specialists and wanting to reduce consulting costs has led to the emergence of online platforms such as Expert 360 and Talmix to connect businesses with contractors and freelancers.

3. Extreme Customers
Obtain feedback from business customers who:

• Love your company
• Hate your company
• Stopped doing business with you
• Have never bought from you

By listening to these customers, you could potentially discover:

• New product or service offerings
• New support or ‘value-add’ options
• Ways to better manage and service these customers

     TIP: Be sure to get input from a BUYER perspective

4. Customer Immersion
Spend a day at a customer’s premises “to live in their world.” Using the strategic customer workshop approach:

Observe their operations

• Look for opportunities to improve or change:
  • What you deliver (i.e. Your product /service offerings)
  • How you deliver (i.e. Your processes, systems, customer support)
  • How you engage with your customers (i.e. channels, marketing programs)

Speak with both business buyers (decision makers, influencers and change agents) as well as users to understand their priorities, issues and frustrations.

5. Customer Frustrations and Complaints
Your business customers will likely have some issues or frustrations with your products, services or processes. For instance, the capabilities you promised aren’t being delivered at the speed, quality or service levels they require. Or perhaps decision makers are seeking additional advice or reporting that you are not providing.
Being easy to deal is a key requirement in B2B. So, when a customer expresses frustration with your product, service or support, use that opportunity to learn from their feedback to improve your start-up or SME.

TAKE ACTION NOW

1. Create ways to get feedback from ‘extreme’ customers.
2. Identify upcoming conferences and seminars that may give you insights into changing business customer needs and market trends. Have representatives from your company attend to capture key insights to report back to your management team.

21 Great Ways to Innovate
By: Paul Sloane
 
Try innovating how you innovate by employing some of these ideas.

1. Copy someone else’s idea. One of the best ways to innovate is to pinch an idea that works elsewhere and apply it in your business. Henry Ford saw the production line working in a meat packing plant and then applied to the automobile industry thereby dramatically reducing assembly times and costs.
2. Ask customers. If you simply ask your customers how you could improve your product or service they will give you plenty of ideas for incremental innovations. Typically they will ask for new features or that you make your product cheaper, faster, easier to use, available in different styles and colours etc. Listen to these requests carefully and choose the ones that will really pay back.
3. Observe customers. Do not just ask them, watch them. Try to see how customers use your products. Do they use them in new ways? This was what Levi Strauss saw when they found that customers ripped the jeans – so they brought a line of pre-ripped jeans. Heinz noticed that people stored their sauce jars upside down so they designed an upside down bottle.
4. Use difficulties and complaints. If customers have difficulties with any aspect of using your product or if they register complaints then you have a strong starting point for innovations. Make your product easier to use, eliminate the current inconveniences and introduce improvements that overcome the complaints.
5. Combine. Combine your product with something else to make something new. It works at all levels. Think of a suitcase with wheels, or a mobile phone with a camera or a flight with a massage.
6. Eliminate. What could you take out of your product or service to make it better? Dell eliminated the computer store, Amazon eliminated the bookstore, the Sony Walkman eliminated speakers and record functions.
7. Ask your staff. Challenge the people who work in the business to find new and better ways to do things and new and better ways to please customers. They are close to the action and can see opportunities for innovation. Often they just need encouragement to bring forward great ideas.
8. Plan. Include targets for new products and services in your business plan. Put it onto the balanced scorecard. Write innovation into everyone’s objectives. Measure it and it will happen.
9. Run brainstorms. Have regular brainstorm meetings where you generate a large quantity of new product ideas. Use diverse groups from different areas of the business and include a provocative outsider e.g. a customer or supplier.
10. Examine patents. Check through patents that apply in your field. Are there some that you could license? Are some expiring so that you can now use that method? Is there a different way of achieving the essential idea in a patent?
11. Collaborate. Work with another company who can take you to places you can’t go. Choose a partner with a similar philosophy but different skills. That is what Mercedes did with Swatch when they came up with the Smart car.
12. Minimize or maximize. Take something that is standard in the industry and minimise or maximise it. Ryanair minimized price and customer service. Starbucks maximised price and customer experience. It is better to be different than to be better.
13. Run a contest. Ask members of the public to suggest great new product ideas. Offer a prize. Give people a clear focussed goal and they will surprise you with novel ideas. Good for innovation and PR.
14. Ask – what if? Do some lateral thinking by asking what if…..? Challenge every boundary and assumption that applies in your field. You and your group will come up with amazing ideas once the normal constraints are lifted.
15. Watch the competition. Do not slavishly follow the competition but watch them intelligently. The small guys are often the most innovative so see if you can adapt or license one of their ideas – or even buy the company!
16. Outsource. Subcontract your new product development challenge to a design company, a University, a start-up or a crowdsourcing site like ive or NineSigma.
17. Use open innovation. Big consumer products companies like Proctor and Gamble or Reckitt Benckiser encourage developers to bring novel products to them. They are flexible on IP protection and give a clear focus on what they are looking for. A large proportion of their new products now start life outside the company.
18. Adapt a product to a new use. Find an entirely different application for an existing product. De Beers produced industrial diamonds but found a new use for diamonds when they introduced the concept of engagement rings. It opened up a large new market for them.
19. Try Triz. Triz is a systematic method for solving problems. It can be applied in many fields but is particularly useful in engineering and product design. Triz gives you a toolbox of methods to solve contradictions e.g. how can we make this product run faster but with less power?
20. Go back in time. Look back at methods and services that were used in your sector years ago but have now fallen out of use. Can you bring one back in a new updated form? It has been said that Speed Dating is really a relaunch of a Victorian dance format where ladies had cards marked with appointments.
21. Use social networks. Follow trends and ask questions on groups like Twitter or Facebook. Ask what people want to see in future products or what the big new idea will be. Many early adopters are active on social network groups and will happily respond with suggestions.