The backdoor of innovation

The nature and creation of many businesses goes through several stages from conception of the business idea to the research implementation and either manufacturing or finally rendering a service. Most products do go through the production cycle of strategy, idea generation, screening and evaluation, business analysis, development, testing, and commercialization, but often, most companies and organisations often forget the most essential stage which is often left out; innovation, which births reproduction in every top organisation which has stood the test of time. Examination of these organisations and firms that has stood the test time has shown that innovation is the key to being in the business and not being left behind by the everchanging market forces and competition from firms who offer substitute goods or services, as well as start-ups who often project more on the weaknesses of top firms. Thus, most successful firm over time are those that did innovate and reviewed, re-strategized and reproduced, from packaging to development of new products to suit the ever-changing demands of customers. One key ingredient in successfully meeting the demands of your clients is the understanding that customers tastes do change and so do their wants, and as such a creative approach to executing new ideas to create value and meet these ever-changing demands of customers best defines innovation.

Why Innovate

Innovation helps with the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage. The business world is also a case of evolution like life, it is a survival of the fittest race and not for the misfits or companies stuck on the same supply in an ever-changing customer demands situation. Innovation helps you create new value, and every company either from not-for-profit to public sector to publicly traded companies and even to charity organizations can benefit from a structured approach to innovation management that births ideas to life. Rather than seeing innovation as a concept, it is better for decision makers in every organisation to start seeing it as a tool. When careful examination and research and innovation is done well, the following are guaranteed:

  1. Improved Productivity:  Increasing productivity is a major goal for most organisations, because the more productive they are, the more money they can also bring into their businesses. While this idea may seem simple, to fully understand what it means to increase productivity, you must go past a literal definition and develop a stronger understanding of the idea as a whole. Improved productivity is what every organisation wants but in reality, it is not as easy as said. With innovation, you understand what you’re doing right or wrong, your customers strong and weak points and understanding this helps you reshape your offering and use of resources, thus improved productivity.
  • New partnerships and relationships: partnership is a give-and-take relationship that can strengthen organizations’ capacity for long-term cooperation and collaboration. To achieve the potential benefits of partnership, organizations must be prepared to build, sustain, and evaluate them in a thoughtful way
  • Changing Workforce Demographics: Demographic change is the main reason organizations need to adapt their practices in order to respond to increasing diversity within labour markets. Diversity alters pools of potential employees, and the needs of employees, as well as influencing broader business objectives like service provision. new ways of organizing will be increasingly important for firms to succeed in the future, it will also be important to take into account the deep demographic changes occurring in the workplace. Indeed, firms are already facing the challenge of transforming their structures and ways of organizing to incorporate the new generation.
  • Increasing Consumer Expectations: With social media and the continuing advancement of technology, marketing will become increasingly personalized for each customer. This will require new ways to market, advertise products and services, as well as gain and retain customers.  The modern consumer is more informed and, thanks to globalization, has more options available to them. Consumer expectation is also high and will continue to be so.  They will not accept mediocre or obsolete products or services.  They don’t have to.  They have options.  Consumers are looking for products that will improve their lives.  They want companies to solve their problems and to make their lives easier.  As a result, customer expectations are and will continue to drive innovation. The theme now and in the near future is that companies have to innovate, regardless of their industry, and make it core to their business strategy.  If not, they risk becoming irrelevant to consumers.

Left Behinds? The Backdoor of Innovation

When you fail to innovate, or systematically strategize and evaluate your services, you are in danger of being left behind or going through the backdoor of innovation, and trust me, it isn’t a nice place any organisation would like to be. How well do you systematically strategize and re-strategize? how well do you understand your customer journey, their joy and pains in using your services? Do you often create solutions for your customers without having an informed understanding of why your customers prefer your brand? Innovation helps with these and If your answer is not much for most of the questions above, then you’re closer to the backdoor than you imagine. Various organisations and multinational companies have been left behind because of lack of innovation or innovation done wrong, because one may ask the question; Can innovation be wrong? Innovation can’t be wrong, but you can innovate wrongly. Microsoft introduced the popular browser Internet Explorer in 1995, but after years of constantly adding features, till it became heavy, buggy and nonresponsive, the browser is set to end its lifespan in 2020 because they failed to quickly realize their customers need a quick and responsive browser, not too much functions. It was a case of less is more, thus The Backdoor. Blackberry was dominant in the smartphone market after introducing Blackberry 850, which was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager in Munich, Germany. They had many years of success with their stylish qwerty styled phones and the popular blackberry messenger but when the world moved away from the hardware qwerty buttons on phones for more screen blackberry didn’t, for some years the blackberry messenger did hid the crack on the wall, but immediately other mobiles were licensed to use it on android, it all went south, it dawned on them their devices weren’t really preferred as a product but the blackberry messenger. Thus, the backdoor.

Gokada a bike taxi company was founded 2017 in Nigeria, the service was launched originally and started operations in Yaba Axis of Lagos state and then extended their operations to Victoria Island – Lekki Axis Lagos, Nigeria and then to other parts. In May 2019 Gokada raised $5.4 million in series A to grow its two-wheel transit business. Gokada added luxury yacht service to its bike services in June 2019. But then the beautiful story didn’t last long, The emergence of a competitor named O’Ride with more funding, and who carefully capitalize on the loopholes left behind by Gokada to recruit more bikers who already had good bikes and give them helmets and a few stuffs rather than giving out bikes like Gokada did and were able to carry more people along before eventually poaching Gokada’s staffs with better offers.  If Gokada had innovated and identified this option before them, O’Ride won’t have even been given the chance to hit the ground running. Eventually they had to suspend their services, thus Left Behind.

Conclusion

Human wants are basically unlimited and so is the business world. Consumers wants are not only unlimited, it is ever changing. It is essential for organisations to have a clear and consistent understanding of what their customers want, and taste are at every given period. Best management practices also do evolve over time and so is also the nature of the stock market and other financial markets, therefore a systematic approach to development and re-development of new ideas and best practices should be taken periodically by organisations who wish to survive the sands of time, and this is possible with innovation done right, and here at IRD World, we are here to help you strategize and re-strategize. Feel free to reach out to us +234-813-849-6600.