4 Ways To Encourage Innovation In Your Startup Business

By: Jennifer Birch

As the market becomes saturated, it becomes difficult for many businesses, especially startup enterprises, to stay on top of their competitions. Technology has paved a way for firms to revolutionize their marketing and management strategies. Another tried and tested way to infiltrate their specific markets successfully is to inspire innovation within their offices, from employees to their brand. 

How do you exactly motivate innovation in your office? How can you encourage advancement in your blossoming startup when you are on a tight budget? What should we consider when implementing modernization in our businesses?

In this article, we want to provide five effective methods on how startup entrepreneurs must build their winning businesses by innovating. First, challenging yourself by facing your fear of change. Second, be open to the recommendation of others. Third, appreciate and consider all the digital assistance you can maximize. And lastly, understand which of your business aspects require upgrading and downgrading. By implementing these tips, you will able to keep yourself on top of your competitors and be able to build a creative team effort in your office.

Challenge yourself

Nothing will happen if the core foundation of the enterprise, which is you, don’t believe in the capability of your company, staff, and brand to excel. You must be able to challenge yourself by initially facing your fear of change. Jonathan Fields wrote in his book, Uncertainty, that you must turn your fear and hesitation into energies for brilliant ideas. In order to be successful in any endeavor, you must be able to adapt to change by celebrating it and integrating it in your core values.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times, said Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli.

It will also be beneficial in your firm if you are able to detect the unaddressed customer needs of your competitors, as it can be your way to revolutionize the market you’re dealing with. By finding your unique market value and tapping into the needs of your target market that your competitors haven’t addressed, you are already one step ahead.

Listen to your staff and customers

In order to gather more ideas on how to innovate, you must be open to the recommendations and suggestions of others, especially of your members and your customers. Create a healthy relationship among your workers and encourage an open discussion if they have brilliant ideas that can help build your startup, boost your marketing and sales, as well as strengthen your brand recognition. Encourage them to share their ideas freely by supporting some of it, and discussing it on your weekly or monthly meetings.

Customers will also be able to help you in finding ways to motivate innovation in your business. There are various approaches to gather such information from your target market, such as taking phone or online surveys to previous and potential clients. It might not only assist you in finding ways on how you can improve your startup, but also gather insights or solutions to current or impending problems in your company.

Consider all helpful technologies

Mobile devices, or the smartphones and tablets, we have today are highly popular in the business setting for its ability to offer a convenient means to work, even when you are away from the office. In fact, ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) plans have been implemented and supported by many small to large enterprises in the United States and the United Kingdom. Asian enterprises are also rapidly adopting the trend, as studies have shown that they are the top productivity and office-related app users in the world.

Aside from the smart devices we know today, another form of consumer technology will soon find its spot on the business sector. Based on Alyson Edmunds’ O2 News article, wearables have the potential to assist the workplace, especially in providing and sending data and information hands-free. However, Edmunds’ said there will be issues in security and privacy once this new device gets implemented in businesses, leaving human resource managers and IT departments in need of updating and implementing stricter policies in using these gadgets for work.

Wearables have also paved the way for a mobile working station for many enterprises through ‘bring your own wearable’ (BYOW) schemes. But, startups will have to consider the supply-side complexity by understanding the right operating system and devices to support. Currently, there are more than five top wearables on the market today, as listed by O2, there are Android Wear such as the Moto 360, Pebble Original and Steel, and Sony SmartWatch and SmartBand. There are also various systems to consider either the Android Wear, Tizen by Samsung, or the Watch OS of the Apple Watch.

Learn to upgrade and downgrade

As mentioned previously, change is inevitable aspect that every institution must accept in order to succeed in their business plans. Therefore, one phase that you must include in your planning will be learning which ones to upgrade and which ones to downgrade. Previously, Becky Wilcox wrote that businesses must be able to upgrade their team by providing trainings to management and other staff, updating office technology by adding more IT solutions that are necessary for your business (i.e sufficient voice solutions for call centers), and enhancing your market reach by maximizing on content marketing strategies.

Value the lessons taken from failure as much as your successes, said engagement leader PJ Chan on Forbes.

If there’s one item that will require downgrading in your company, then that will be your failures. However, this does not mean that you have to forget all about your mistakes in the past. Rather, apply what you have learned from these failures towards your new attempts today and in the future. It will be beneficial for everyone. This will foster innovation, which leads to rapid success.

Summary

Building a business will never be an easy endeavor for anyone, even to those who are creating a small enterprise. However, with continuous efforts to innovate and compete fairly on the market with creative ideas, nothing is too difficult to achieve in this sector. Problems and other hurdles along the way are inevitable, so long as your company is willing to creatively innovate and bravely face all doubts, then nothing can stop a business from succeeding (no matter how saturated the market can be).

By Jennifer Birch

Photo : Businessman hand working by Shutterstock.com