We live in the age of digital disruption – a time when organizations are challenged to transform . . . Or die. That’s not an overstatement in an era where household brands are both materializing and disappearing on a near-daily basis. Technology is advancing at a mind-boggling pace, and innovative businesses are launching all the time, each raising the bar on consumer expectations just a tad higher. Think about this … you can be disrupted, or you can seek to achieve shockingly disruptive innovations for your business.
Creativity is thinking up new things; innovation is doing new things.
The average business is massively challenged by the demand for near-constant transformation. No businesses will be exempt, not even the smallest of the small.
The trickle-down effect is always in play, even if you hear little about the impact on these guys.
The forces of digital disruption are radically altering how we all access and consume information, communicate and socialize, shop and purchase.
Ubiquitously connected devices, social networks, cloud services – these and other innovations have already essentially inverted the relationship between sellers and buyers, between brands and customers.
Consumers are empowered by information and shared opinions, and they are emboldened by choice. They have developed an appetite for rich and rewarding interactions, and they rarely hesitate to seek alternatives when disappointed.
We often think of innovation as inventing new things, but we may be smarter to think of it as recombining old ones. The truth is that significant breakthroughs usually come from combining ideas from different domains.
Often very different, sometimes weird ideas.
Increasingly, companies will succeed and fail according to the quality of the digital experiences that they offer. So why wait? Go after the shockingly disruptive innovation for your business.
Let’s discuss how you could achieve this goal.
Sustaining innovation
Peter Drucker once wrote, “Effective innovations start small. They are not grandiose.” He was spot on.
Take a look at any big thing and, inevitably; it is of modest origins.
Microsoft became one of the world’s most valuable companies by focusing on software, an area so inconsequential at the time that IBM was willing to write it off.
Apple made a splash with the Macintosh to a significant part by capitalizing on innovations that Xerox tossed aside.
The great thing about thinking small is that you can risk failure because failure is sustainable. You can falter, pick yourself up and try again. Eventually, you’ll get it right, and when you do, there are no limits.
Zara is one of the greatest examples of process innovation.
The founder, Armancio Ortega started his business in the year 1975 as a single store in La Coruña (Spain).
Ortega, once a tailor’s assistant learned the value of controlling all steps of the production and distribution process, later he applied it all to the Zara chain. And started refining the process steps based on this critical concept.
Every day, store managers report customer feedback information to headquarters, where it is then transmitted to a large team of in-house designers, who quickly develop new designs and send them to factories to be turned into clothes.
Echevarría said that is because the customer is always determining production — not the other way around. An interesting thought isn’t it?
Every piece of clothing the company makes has, in a way, been requested.
A business model that is so closely attuned to the customer does not share the cycle of a financial crisis.
Disruptive innovations … disruptive meaning and change
Disruptive meaning.
Most leaders demand hard data when making critical decisions. In times of disruptive change, robust data rarely exist.
Leaders must use any information they can obtain from any source inside and outside the company—but then complement that data by using their gut to round out the equation.
Read books and magazines, and watch videos and presentations on topics you wouldn’t normally.
Attend conferences in seemingly unrelated fields. Pay attention to products or company ideas coming from other countries and other areas.
Look for latent desires
Steve Jobs was a big believer in hidden desires in customers … clients who couldn’t tell you what they wanted. A great example comes from the Apple ecosystem.
There were plenty of digital music players around when Steve Jobs and Apple launched the i-Pod.
Note he also combined his player with i-Tunes, which made content both more accessible and palatable to music companies. He then threw new products into the mix – the i-Phone, i-Pad and now Siri – creating more combinations and even greater value.
One famous historical example is that of the discovery of genetics. In 1865, when Gregor Mendel published his groundbreaking study of the inheritance of characteristics in pea plants, it went nowhere.
It had taken nearly a half-century before the concept was combined with Darwin’s natural selection to unleash a torrent of innovations in medicine and science.
Focus on adding value
Business models are often neglected when considering new ideas for your business. They shouldn’t be. One of the best examples of an innovative business model is from Safelite Auto Glass.
What’s innovative here you may be thinking? It’s simple. An auto glass repairs business that comes to you for your repair. Saving you time and convenience.
A value proposition and business model that is hard to top.
Consider an example ofInternet Privacy
Running a business today almost certainly means having a digital presence, and being connected to the Internet.
While the benefits of this transformation are many, the security issues are still a daily challenge, with many solutions in the marketplace to address them.
Yes, internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are free to track all your browsing behavior and sell it to advertisers without consent. ISPs have access to literally all of your browsing behavior – they act as a gateway for all of your web visits, clicks, searches, app downloads and video streams.
This represents a huge treasure trove of personal data, including health concerns, shopping habits, and porn preferences. ISPs want to use this data to deliver personalized advertising.
Looking for a valid VPN solution?
Look at things in a new way
Disruptive innovation and change is a process chock full of surprise—failures, successes, unexpected technological advancements, aggressive moves, customer feedback, political and regulatory shifts, and other unforeseen events.
Most leaders assume surprises always should be avoided.
But those who realize that surprises are an inevitable part of a business (just like life) are best equipped to use surprise as a strategic tool—which makes them the agilest and fastest to respond to or capitalize on unforeseen events.
Shift ideas into a new context
A simple example of this is the use of milk cartons to display missing persons’ pictures and description details.
Can you imagine a better place to get this kind of attention?
Shockingly disruptive innovation … examine what can be changed
Ask employees for ideas and remember no idea is unworthy of consideration.Your employees see opportunities every day for saving money or doing things better. Ask for their thoughts.
At the U.S. Postal Service, 850 employee-led “Green Teams” helped save $52 million related to water, energy, fuel, and waste and generated $24 million in new revenue through recycling.
The bottom line
Our message for businesses is simple. Think more like an innovator. Learn the innovation process. Spend time at the front end on what the marketplace needs, rather than trying to build a slick marketing campaign selling your invention.
That is the best way to succeed.
Innovation isn’t about talking; it’s about the doing. The action.
So get moving and begin your journey from an accidental innovator to a high-performance innovation business leader.
Like anything else, fostering creative business ideas require practice.
So exercise and practice this skill and utilize it in as many areas of your business as you can.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking
Amazon and Managing Innovation … the Jeff Bezos Vision
