Innovation Management
So far undiscovered needs offer new growth opportunities.
Innovation without customer centricity is possible.
But pointless.
Innovative is not only a company that develops a new product. Innovative are also – and especially today – companies that rely on innovative strategies in product marketing. Find new applications and markets for their products. Inventing additional services outside of their products. Or who innovate their manufacturing or organisation process.
But either way: courage and the right methods help a lot.
Growth through innovation sounds plausible. But quite honestly: often the supposed innovation is nothing more than another product variation. Or a novelty that, though never seen before… …but for good reason. Great idea, but unfortunately completely “innovated without regard to the customer” So how then?
Although Customer Centricity sounds like another buzzword at this point, it actually helps immensely to find out from which real needs an innovative solution can be found.
Because sometimes it is not a new product that is missing in your branch/market. But a problem solver of a completely different kind. For example, an additional service that complements the products or even brings the unique selling proposition.
The Liechtenstein company Hilti has shown this in an exemplary manner: B2B customers do not buy hammer drills. They buy the guarantee service that the construction site never stands still. Perhaps this service would never have come about without the early concentration on users and customers.
“If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.”
(Henry Ford)
Innovation can also be generated by finding new application markets for the existing product. Or you can find a completely new niche by slightly adapting the product, which no one has occupied before. This must succeed not only with small start-up companies. Even established brands or companies can win through innovative “thinking outside the box”.
Whether with or without digitalization: if you discover a “disruptive” innovation, you can move an entire market and shift market boundaries. You become a game changer.
In unseren Projekten hat sich immer wieder gezeigt: Um dahin zu kommen, braucht es vor allem Mut, die richtigen Methoden und eine von der Unternehmensspitze geförderte Innovationskultur.
Die richtigen Methoden, zum Beispiel Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Blue Ocean und und und, kann man lernen. Am besten in einem definiertem Team, das wirklich frei und ohne Druck des Tagesgeschäfts kreativ werden darf.
Die Innovationskultur sollte im Unternehmen etabliert sein oder werden. Idealerweise wird das Innovations-Team von der Unternehmensführung aufgestellt und bekommt die volle Rückendeckung. Auch, wenn die Innovationsidee letztlich ein Rohrkrepierer wird. Denn schliesslich ist der gescheiterte Test ein eigentlicher Erfolg: wären Sie als Unternehmen mit der Idee in den Markt gegangen, wäre es teuer geworden.
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