Creating A Competitive Advantage With Continuous Innovations

Innovation is rapidly becoming an enabler that strengthens and focuses the corporate strategies, and over time has become a key element  to many corporate goals and strategies. While innovation is based on new ideas,  ideas alone do not and cannot guarantee innovation. Continuations and successful innovations are required to survive in all businesses beginning right from  being a startup, and increasing in importance as the business grows.

Innovation is a special tool for entrepreneurs. Doing new things, or doing old things in a new way, is how entrepreneurs can exploit change as an opportunity to succeed in business. Successful innovation turns ideas into money, and enhances customer value. Although innovation is no easy feat, continuous  innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation is    hard, because people by nature resist change, and company cultures are most comfortable with the status quo. Yet survival in today’s world of rapid business change requires that you keep one step ahead of your competition. Innovation is what gives life to your business initially, and keeps it alive in the long run.

Continuous innovation creates tremendous value and still drives competitive advantage in many companies and industries. Successfully building a strong culture of continuous innovation also represents a huge opportunity for an organization to attract the best talent, to lower costs, to continuously add new revenue streams, and to better achieve competitive separation.

Like the long-established affordable, luxurious soap brand, Lux has retained its unrivaled popularity since 1925 by continuing to evolve, embracing consumer trends for new sensual fragrances, colors and textures. “We have to keep reinventing Lux – just like any beauty icon – to ensure we stay at number one,” maintains Unilevers Global Vice-President . Bringing glamour into the world of the Lux consumer by provoking the senses – sight, smell and touch – like never before, Lux is continuously strengthening the bond with current users while getting lapsed users to reappraise the brand, and staying ahead of the market.

In today’s competitive scenario, the key to success is to have an out of the box thinking with innovative ideas. Organizations that are stagnant in their approach cannot survive in the world of stiff and cut-throat competition. Even if you think up a bunch of ideas on a regular basis, it is necessary to test those ideas against reality.  Ideas need to be  game changers and  a part  of what makes it possible   is playing to your strengths and testing your ideas. The ability to renew existing solutions or change them to fit the current market trends with idea management solutions, can set your enterprise apart and turn your business as pioneers in the field, while also looking to provide a delightful customer experience at all times.

Read More About: idea management

Open Innovation In Entertainment & Music Industry

“Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to do is open the door to just one more good idea” is what American author, entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn has to say about idea management and its significance in the modern day business sphere. This holds true for every enterprise that makes use of open innovation to make the most of their product development strategies, brand launches, new product development, corporate social responsibility initiatives and many more. In the recent past, there has been a significant change in the way the entertainment and music industry has shaped up. Since it’s the mass at large on which their success depends this industry vertical has been resorting to open innovation methods.

When it comes to science fiction, Star Wars still remains one of its kinds. It was in 2009 that Starwarsuncut.com, United States resorted to crowdsourcing and requested all Star Wars fans to contribute homemade scenes. This was meant to be included as a crowdsourced version of the 1977 classic ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope’. The contest had specific instructions that were to be followed by the participant. The original film was segmented into 15 second chunks inviting the participants to select any clip they want to and re-film it and submit it within 30 days. Star War fans, aspiring film students and other interested participants submitted several versions of each scene. The film was finally available on internet in August 2010 and even won Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media.

Thus we see that the power of innovation does not reside within a seminar room or amidst a chosen group of employees. Everyone is capable of coming with a revolutionary idea that can set benchmark for others. The same holds true for music. Any and everyone has a sense of music. Based on the same idea telecom giant Nokia made use of open innovation to come up with a remix version of its old tune.

Working on similar lines Music Hackday, United Kingdom, launched the Music Hack Day Series that was a turbocharged idea generating crowdsourcing and open innovation initiative with an objective to come up with innovative ideas related to the functioning of digital music technologies. The event took place over a weekend with 72 creative idea submissions and prize distributions to the participants who came up with something  exciting and unique.

In today’s competitive and fast changing world, the core essence of idea management services has transformed. The traditional “brainstorming” process has evolved and is more widespread now. The audience at large value innovation highly and care deeply about it. They count on companies and brands that they see as pioneers, striving to improve their world and takes into account ideas from the common man. On an enterprise level this fosters a culture of knowledge sharing that conveys a brand’s message to the audience in the most appropriate manner.

Read More About: idea management solutions

Manage, Prioritize and Implement Viable Ideas Using Idea Management Software

Wikipedia defines innovation as “the development of new customer value through solutions that meet new needs, inarticulate needs or old customer and market needs in new ways. This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.”

This holds true in the case of product companies where innovation is not just about creating new products but reinventing, restructuring and reengineering business processes, workflow management, market trends and even new markets where unaddressed and unfulfilled needs exist. With untapped markets, ideas and customers always present, what is required is to find the right idea and introduce it at the right time in the right market.

For product companies, innovative ideas are a necessity to ensure the growth of the top line revenue, to make the bottom line efficient, to differentiate from their competitors, and to stay relevant and on their toes. For example, take the case of Dell, one of the largest technological corporations in the world. It firmly believed that its customers have the power to make a real and enormous difference to the company's profits. Hence, it came up with the innovative idea of a community to reach out to millions of its customers. Named as IdeaStorm, this community interacts with millions of its customers in more than 100 countries and asks them to share ideas and collaborate with one another to tell Dell what new products or services to develop. The result being that in two years, Dell has gathered more than 11,000 innovative products ideas.

This interesting piece of information highlights the fact that innovative ideas can change the destiny of a company.  Though innovative thinking is important, idea management is equally important to roll in the profits. Hence, what is required is an idea management system to channelize, prioritize, manage and implement viable ideas. Here is a look at some of the benefits of deploying idea management software:

• New competitive products and services
• Process improvements
• Improved collaboration and decision making across teams
• Competitive advantage
• Identify hidden talent and new areas of growth
• Enhanced Brand Value and Brand Loyalty

Thus with idea management software, product companies can look to promote employee inclusivity ensuring more ownership of tasks from current employees thereby enabling them to keep both themselves and the company updated and aligned with the changing market.