Innovation and continuous improvements goes hand in hand
Too often I see that people in general do not see or understand that Innovation and continuous improvements goes hand in hand. Some weeks ago I had a chat with a management consult who was talking about innovations and how important this was, her problem was that it was difficult to find the ideal candidate to work with innovation. But what is innovation? Sometimes it sees that people believe that innovation is to invent something whole new that does not exist yet. This is a misunderstood perception of innovations
Business Innovation is an organization’s process for introducing new ideas, workflows, methodologies, services or products. Like IT, which calls for using technology in new ways to create more efficient organization, business innovation should enable the achievement of goals across the entire organization, with sights set on accomplishing core business aims and initiatives. Like digitalization and the change process of the National School Fruit https://www.dr-glennhole.org/referance-cases/ this was an innovation that saved the public for 120.000 working hours each school semester.
Innovation often begins with idea generation, wherein ideas are narrowed down during brainstorming sessions after which leaders consider the business viability, feasibility and desirability of each idea. The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. To be called an innovation, an idea must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. Innovation involves deliberate application of information, imagination and initiative in deriving greater or different values from resources, and includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into useful products. In business, innovation often results when ideas are applied by the company in order to further satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. In a social context, innovation helps create new methods for alliance creation, joint venturing, flexible work hours, and creation of buyers’ purchasing power. Innovations are divided into two broad categories:
– Evolutionary innovations (continuous or dynamic evolutionary innovation) that are brought about by many incremental advances in technology or processes and
– Revolutionary innovations (also called discontinuous innovations) which are often disruptive and new.
It is important to understand the different of Evolutionary innovations and Revolutionary innovations. Innovations is more than to just invent something new.