How to Innovate

5 Strategy Questions to Ask to Discover WHERE You Need to Innovate

Innovation is all about finding new ways to do things, whether you are implementing a new process, building a culture of innovation, creating innovative products and services, changing your business model, or applying new technologies.

In today’s marketplace, innovation isn’t a “nice to have” – companies that want to remain competitive and outlast their rivals must innovate. Ultimately, innovation allows you to achieve sustainable long-term success.

Here’s how innovation helps your business succeed:

Encourages growth
Enables productivity
Introduces efficiencies
Enhances performance
Reduces costs
Builds new partnerships and relationships
Promotes customer satisfaction and loyalty
Improves employee relations (possibly also reducing turnover and helping you retain key employees!)
Provides flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing global marketplaces

Taken together, these elements improve your profitability and competitiveness.

Innovating may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! Innovative ideas can come from many different sources, like your front-line employees, R&D, your external partners, newly available technologies, your customers, and the list goes on. It’s also not necessary for innovation to be a huge paradigm-shifting change in your company, industry, or the way you do business. It can be small, incremental improvements that add up to great effect.

It starts with asking the right questions to understand which areas your organization should focus on.

Ask These 5 Strategic Questions

An article in Harvard Business Review outlines which five questions are key:

What are our broad aspirations for our organization and the concrete goals against which we can measure our progress?
Across the potential field available to us, where will we choose to play and not play?
In our chosen place to play, how will we choose to win against the competitors there?
What capabilities must be built and maintained in order to win in our chosen manner?
What management systems are necessary to operate these key capabilities?

Innovation isn’t something you do once and then stop; it’s an ongoing process of improvement and refinement to help your company reach its goals. To reap the benefits, innovation and creative thinking should be formalized in your business strategy (if they aren’t already)!

Innovators Alliance is a business-to-business networking group of CEOs committed to driving growth through innovation. Be our guest at one of our upcoming events!

Is your company innovative? Try our Innovator Self-Test. It has only 10 questions and takes less than 2 minutes!

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Peggie Pelosi

Peggie Pelosi is the Executive Director of Innovators Alliance. She works with entrepreneurs and CEOs throughout Ontario to ensure they have access to the tools and resources to ensure profitable growth through innovation. Peggie is a seasoned entrepreneur and innovator, having built two companies which have both been game-changers in their industries. Peggie teaches in the space of Social Innovation in graduate business programs at the University of Toronto-St. Michael’s College and Seneca College.