In order to be successful, businesses need to create new ideas and implement them in an efficient and predictable way. If they don’t, they’ll quickly find themselves losing to their competition.
However, doing so is not as easy as it looks. In fact, most companies approach innovation completely wrong. Here are a few key characteristics of every great innovation strategy:
Your innovation strategy must be informative
If you don’t have a cohesive strategy that can be easily understood by all members of your team, then you’re doomed to fail. Your strategy needs to be clear and concise, outlining the steps that need to be taken in order for an idea to be turned into a reality.
In order to create a truly informative strategy, your team needs to be joined under it as one unit. This means that everyone needs to be on the same page, working together towards a common goal. It should also be flexible so that it can adapt as new information arises.
Since the innovation process is unpredictable, this is absolutely essential.
It cannot focus on activities, but rather on outcomes
Innovating is not about focusing on your competitors’ activities and copying or changing them. Innovating is about creating a product that successfully completes a job that a customer wants to get done.
This means that you need to focus on your customer’s needs, not on what your competitors are doing.
Your innovation strategy should be focused on creating value for your customers. This means understanding their needs and desires, and then figuring out how you can best meet them. Only after you have done this can you focus on the activities needed to bring your product to market and sell.
It must focus on the customer’s job
Your customers are buying your product in order to complete a job. This could be an actual job, such as mowing the lawn, or it could be a more abstract job, such as making themselves feel more confident.
In order to create a successful innovation strategy, you need to focus on the customer’s desired outcome.
Focus on what they are trying to accomplish and how they use your product to do that. Once you have a good understanding of this, you can start to create products and features that will help them achieve their desired outcome.
It innovates based on underserved outcomes
When conducting market research to understand how your customers use your and your competitors’ products, you will likely find that not all of their desired outcomes are met. In fact, you will probably find that there are many underserved outcomes.
These are the perfect opportunities for you to innovate. By creating products and features that focus on these underserved outcomes, you can create a competitive advantage for your business.
For example, in Uber’s infancy, the company was competing against taxi companies, An underserved market that the company uncovered was “people who want to get from point A to point B in a frictionless process.”
This was a perfect opportunity for Uber to innovate by developing a smartphone app that allowed people to call drivers easily.
By focusing on these key characteristics, you can develop an innovation strategy that will help your business succeed. Keep these in mind as you work to create new products and bring them to market. With a little creativity and hard work, you can succeed in any industry.
For more information on innovation strategy, visit https://strategyn.com/innovation-strategy/