What is innovation? A new solution to an old problem. A radically different approach. A way of unlocking value in a niche where no one else is looking. Read on to discover why you need to keep innovating even when your company is well established…
‘Innovate’ is what creative startups do – it’s in their lifeblood to be pioneering and it’s how they come to exist. It’s important to recognise (but less obvious to see) that innovation is also crucial for growing and scaling companies. All successful businesses were fledgling startups once – and the same vision and values that helped you take flight also hold the key to your sustainability.
Here are four ways to keep the spirit of innovation alive in your business…
1. Disorientate to innovate
While a nimble startup can sprint from concept to execution within days, it can take months for big companies to make changes. So if your business is large and growing and you want to stay agile and innovative, what do you do? The following case study shows how global fashion retailer, Asos, used ‘disruption’ as a tool to support innovation…
To shake things up and keep ideas fresh, Asos ran some whole-day ‘hackathons’ to get their people thinking in different ways.
Separated into cross-discipline teams of people who never normally work together, participants were tasked with brainstorming ideas and solving problems. Later that same day, each team was asked to present their ideas to colleagues and a panel of judges.
These tight-deadline, comfort-zone-defying challenges sparked prolific creativity and strong teamwork. Some of the ideas that sprung from the events were taken forward and used to drive the ASOS customer experiences in new and innovative ways.
In some cases, the people whose ideas had been chosen were appointed ‘CEO’ of those projects and entrusted to make them happen – further reinforcing an ethos that genuinely rewards innovation.
In the same way that Asos followed through (and cashed in) on their ideas-sparking sessions, every growing business should live and breathe innovation – creating an environment where experimentation is encouraged and rewarded.
2. Investigate to innovate
For an organisation to thrive, customer service and innovation should go hand in hand. A big part of caring for your customer is constantly checking in to ask how they’re experiencing your brand. How do they interact with it? Do they fully understand how it works? What do they love about it? What flaws are compromising their experience? Is the pricing fair? Etc.
But customer care isn’t as simple as just finding out what people want and delivering it. Customers don’t always know what they want – they sometimes just know what their pain points are. For example, “I haven’t received my order,” is a common pain point. An innovative business will act fast to ensure this pain point doesn’t affect that customer again – or the next 1000 people who may potentially have the same experience.
Ideally, all your team members should work in customer services for a while (especially those in your innovations department). There’s nothing quite like reading customers’ emails to reveal exactly how your product is being used. Listening to feedback and dialoguing with customers can give you innovation-sparking insights you simply wouldn’t get from market research with closed-ended questions.
Don’t just quantify – qualify
Quantitative data will tell you how many people are maybe completing a particular action on your website. Qualitative data will tell you why.
For example, quantitative data might show that hundreds of people are signing up to your network. But qualitative data might reveal they’re only doing this because you have an annoying pop-up that forces them to enter their email address before they can proceed.
If you just interpreted their behaviour from a quantitative perspective, those multiple signups would seem like a positive indication. That’s until qualitative data revealed that after a one-off purchase, customers ceased to interact with your brand at all – and they resented being coerced into sharing their contact details.
The more you talk to your customers about how they’re experiencing your brand, the more innovative you can be in fine-tuning it – or taking it in a radically new direction.
3. Renavigate to innovate
Every time something doesn’t go quite to plan (or even goes badly wrong) is a golden opportunity to connect with customers and get insights into improving your offering.
If you reach out and say, “So sorry that happened – we’ve fixed it now – please can we chat so we can understand any additional pain points?” this not only brings valuable learnings but it demonstrates that you genuinely care. Customers like to know their feelings are being considered, especially if their feedback directly leads to improvements in your product or service.
4. Delegate to innovate
The inspiration to keep you innovating can come from inside as well as outside your organisation. Every new recruit you hire can bring fresh perspectives, mindsets and skillsets – opening up boundless potential for breakthrough ideas. Rather than just hire people and tell them what to do, a more enlightened approach is to employ people who can tell YOU what to do – in their capacity as specialists in their field.
So, as you’re building your team, fill in the gaps in your own knowledge and strengths by recruiting people who think differently and excel in areas outside your sphere of expertise. Having the humility and self-awareness to understand what you are (and are not) good at will help you let go and delegate.
Some tips to keep you in-novating and out-ivating
- To keep your inspiration and innovation bubbling away, write down all your ideas and never dismiss any of them as silly, outlandish or too ambitious. Jot every thought in a notebook. There’s something about committing an idea to paper that gives it life.
- Continually stretch your mind by attending conferences, exhibitions and talks given by people outside your own industry, in different fields. And also left of field: listen to the world’s mavericks and nonconformists.
- If you find yourself feeling curious about something and googling it to see if it exists, pay attention to that mind stream: you may discover nobody has invented it yet. That idea might end up being THE idea. Or it may lead to something else.
- A final word about innovation… If you are brilliant or fortunate enough to have an original idea, honour it and go on the journey with it. An in-novative vision starts inside you – but it’s up to you to out-ivate it.
This how-to guide was inspired by one of our Zoom Dives with Winnie Awa, founder and CEO of Carra and Antidote Street.
Our Zoom Dive events are deep-delving discussions between our founder, Carolyn Dailey and a handpicked creative business expert. You can listen to Carolyn and Winnie’s full discussion here.
Fancy catching our next Zoom Dive, live? See our Events calendar and sign up for free.
Meanwhile, feel free to plunder our Knowledge bank for more inspiration on growing and scaling your business.