1. Review your market research
When you start to develop your innovation strategy it’s a good idea to review your market research to help you identify:
- key gaps in the market which are opportunities for you to be innovative
- how other organisations are being innovative.
You may also like to:
- ask your customers for feedback to gain insights to improve your processes, products or services
- ask your employees for ideas based on their experience with customers.
2. Understand your opportunities
Opportunities for innovation occur in 2 ways:
- internal business opportunities through changes to processes
- external business opportunities through collaborations and product or service offerings.
Identify innovation opportunities for your business
Consider the ideas below and make notes on how each one could support your business:
- export or import products or services
- invent a new product or service
- streamline your operations to reduce cost
- seek out tenders and contracts
- collaborate with others
- expand your business online
- social media to extend your customer reach.
3. Decide on open or closed innovation
Once you understand your opportunities for innovation, you must decide if you will use an open or closed innovation model.
Open innovation means that you:
- actively seek collaboration with external partners
- recognise that no business has all the expertise nor owns all the best ideas
- understand that solutions may already exist in other industries.
Closed innovation allows you to:
- control all intellectual property and profit within your organisation
- maintain strong boundaries of a project.
4. Find support and guidance
Connect with a business adviser or find a grant or program to help drive innovation in your business.
5. Update your business plan
An innovation strategy is just one part of your business plan. Make sure you update your business plan to reflect your innovative ideas and processes.