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We live in a fast-paced, instant gratification global
society that adores big. The next big thing. The big innovation. The approach
of big innovation isn't ideal for small business. Small innovations are the
best growth strategy for your business. Discover the 7 principles of small
innovations.
Forget Big Think Small
Big business is vastly different from small business.
The big company CEO has the knowledge of how the business works to put the
innovation in context but lacks the time with customers and outside information
required for innovation. As a small business owner, you have the innovation
edge, spending up to 80% of your time at the innovation point meeting
customers.
7 Principles of Small Innovations
1. Free Time: Time is a necessary resource for
innovation. You don't need a 25-hour day to solve your time resource problem.
It's simply a matter of clearing your business from the clutter of old time
consuming practices, outdated technology, time wasting habits, and using
outsourcing.
2. Collect Ideas: Innovative ideas can occur at any
place or anytime. The best way to grab the small innovative ideas is not to
discover them and think about it later. It's too easy to forget or quickly
rationalize that it's too simple. Just carry around a small pocket notebook, a
tape recorder, or a few sticky notes.
3. Look Outside: No matter how good an innovation is use
not only the knowledge and skills within your business but outside resources to
succeed including capital, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and strong
relationships with suppliers.
4. Be Customer Centric: While applying innovation to
your business, it's easy to see the advantages from your perspective while
missing the customers' view. Big companies are notorious for innovating on the
inside with innovations such as self-serve to time stressed customers. If the
innovation makes you feel uncomfortable but delights the customer, you are
probably on the right track.
5. Use All Types Of Innovation: Many of us think of
small innovations as an improvement on an existing procedure, operation, or
product. This form of innovation is linear and is often necessary to make your
business better. But other forms of innovation exist such as the unexpected or
simple innovation.
Small innovations can end up being a big innovation even
when they appear simple at first. In 1998, Google's founders were busy building
the code for the search engine and needed a home page so they put up a simple
page with lots of white space. This simple small innovation was instrumental to
Google's success and led to faster download times.
6. Ask the Right Questions: If you're asking customers
for feedback on your products and services you will get a few innovations
around those features. To play the innovation game, ask the customer what their
experience was like.
7. Make a Daily Habit: Innovation doesn't often occur in
a meeting or at a desired time. Small innovations occur at anytime and any
place. Make it a daily practice to apply innovation to your small business and
implement your best ideas.
Innovation has no geographic boundaries and the game of
innovation is open globally and locally. Your small business can gain the
competitive advantage by applying the 7 principles of small innovations.
If you liked this post, you can read other helpful articles on ABOUT.COM
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