In What Ways Can Your Company Innovate?
Innovation takes many shapes and forms, and despite putting the customer at the center of it, it doesn’t always have to be in the product or service that the customer uses, but will definitely affect the customer eventually. Let’s now explore different areas in which your company can channel its innovation, starting on the outside going inward:
1. Engaging with your customer: There are many touch points between your brand and your customers, and not just when buying/using your product or getting your service, it is before, during and after that. Make that whole experience as smooth as possible to make sure a client doesn’t lose interest due to a complicated process or a hassle he can easily drop.
2. Delivering convenience: Companies now compete over the most convenient delivery service.
3. Offering free add-on services: An add-on service is something extra that you offer for free when customers buy your product or engage with your services. It could be as simple as filling the fuel tank for customers when they bring in their cars for maintenance, or a free neck massage while waiting. Or something as simple as a children’s playing area at the hair salon – or even a real estate sales office.
4. Create collaborations: Find products that complement your offering, or create a more enjoyable/convenient experience when paired with them, and integrate them with yours. They could be your own or another brand’s.
5. Integrate vertically: Many retailers acquire or merge their own suppliers in order to cut costs by killing the margin they pay in buying products, supplies and raw materials. That is one way of doing it, but another way could be expanding into the production of supplies yourself, which is what Netflix did when it started producing films instead of just renting out DVDs. Another example is how Apple integrated on both sides by manufacturing its own parts, and selling its products in its own shops, whereby now they own the brand, the supplier, and the retailer.
6. Appeal to more conscious customers: More and more people are becoming health conscious and environmentally and socially aware. They make very specific choices in what they eat, drink, use and dispose of. No matter how small you think this type of audience is, or whether this trend would continue, you need to catch on before your competitors do.
7. Digitize: If your company is not digital yet, you need to catch up. And we don’t just mean in terms of online advertising, we mean in every possible way. From digitizing your internal processes and systems through ERP, CRM and HCM software solutions to creating apps and platforms for customers to engage with you in faster and smoother ways.
Those were just a few examples of how innovation can help your business thrive. However, there are endless other ways you can innovate to not just beat your competitors, but run ahead and leave the competition altogether.
For more about this topic, download our latest book "Innovation: Work Essentials in the Third Millennium" for FREE:
