Take Innovation Seriously...or else

It may seem incredible to some, but the vast majority of businesses in the UK (and in the world at large) do not take innovation seriously.

To many, "innovation is wasted time" and staff could be better employed in actually 'doing the job'. Whilst working hard is an extremely valued trait, when transformations happen within an industry - and they now happen at an incredibly increasing rate - it is the companies that have had their head down, not anticipating such changes, that very often get in to trouble.

So why should your company take innovation seriously?

Taking advantage of changes in buyer behaviour and industry mindset is as important as looking after your existing customers. In fact, it's often the very same thing. If you have customers that you have given great service to for a number of years, but have not informed them of recent industry trends, or indeed built products and services around these industry trends, then are you actually giving great customer service?

Is the 'new kid on the block' - the company that has seen how the industry has and is changing - a better supplier to your existing customers that have not been made aware of recent changes? Should your customers stay loyal to a nice, warm, but indirectly irresponsible company?

Innovation is nothing without well looked-after customers

If you already have great customers, innovation is crucial for your success as a business - as is great service. The two together are a potent force that only a very few companies manage to engineer.

The opposite is also true - innovation without actually giving great service to existing customers is nothing short of burying your head in the sand and wasting your customer's time and money (and sometimes your own). This is when innovation success becomes a lottery. Of course, companies making a hash of looking after customers have made great breakthroughs in the past, but the chances of this happening fall in the low, single digit percentages at best. It's hard to innovate when spending a lot of your time managing upset customers, after all...

A message for the company owner

Treat innovation like an existing customer. Feed it, monitor it, take care of it. Treat it no better, or no worse than you do your existing customers. In doing so, your existing customers will not have only had great service, but will have benefited from the results from treating innovation as one of them.

To find out how we can help you to do this with innovation consultancy, call us on 0161 7060483.