Some days ago I read in a magazine the headline “Back to the new normality”! Does that mean organisations should go back to the old habits and customs. Back to „business as usual“?
There is no “going back”. In this new normality there is only a clear “going forward”. SMEs and entrepreneurs are being challenged. In our opinion there are five key factors of importance in order to consolidate and further expand market positions.
Innovation
Digitalisation
Networking
Cost-Management
Personal-Management
„Innovation“ is probably the most constant companion of entrepreneurs. All SMEs must have started from an idea which lead to an innovation, which further on lead to a business model and hopefully to a successful enterprise. There exist different definitions of „Innovation“. In the context of business, I personally prefer the definition from Wikipedia.
"Innovation (derived from the Latin ‘innovare’ - 'renew') is used in everyday language in the sense of new ideas, inventions and for their economic implementation. In the narrower sense, innovations only result from ideas when they are implemented in new products, services or processes that are actually used successfully and penetrate the market.“
‘Ideas’ are most relevant in these post Covid times. Roger von Oech described the problem with ‘ideas’ as follows.
During the last months of lockdown ‘ideas’ had to be created for immediate implementation. Business organisations now face the risk of returning to old habits and customs, and easely tend to forget the lessons learned and to scratch the ideas created in the moments of urgency. Right now is the moment to translate these ideas into innovations and define new strategies for business.
Many treatises have been written on innovation and distinctions have been made, such as “incremental innovation”, “radical or disruptive innovation”, “product, service innovation”, “process innovation”, etc.
Entrepreneurs and managers are innovators and innovation promoters and should now analyse the company’s innovative strength, the ability and willingness to innovate. There are different ways of doing such an analysis. @IMP³rove - European Innovation Management Academy offers a comprehensive self-analysis. With the help of checklists, the current situation of the company in the various areas (see infographic) is visualised and compared with benchmarks to the average of the specific industry. Innovators receive valuable information about where there is a need to catch up in innovation management.
Our IMP³rove Innovation-Coach is happy to assist you.
Contact us: info@innoreg.ch
#businessempowerment #startupcoaching @innoreg.ch
Klemens Ruoss, Sept 6, 2020
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