Innovate to Stay Alive

Recently, I was reading an interesting case of a mobile phone manufacturing company that until a couple of years ago was the world’s leading and most preferred brand and suddenly it is struggling to keep pace with the competition.

The reason? Well, the competitors have been successful in introducing better, cheaper and faster products with superior technology.
It happens all the time. Nothing remains forever. Products, ideas, services, everything changes. The best-selling products loose the sheen and get outdated if they don’t keep pace with changing time and trends.

People/organizations who reach the top by being imaginative and flexible also sometimes get into a comfort zone. While they fail to explore new directions and get complacent, they provide young competitors an opportunity to race past them, leaving them with two simple choices – Innovate or Perish.

Someone rightly said that ‘the best way to predict future is to invent it’. Consider any example of a successful company, its products, services, people and you will find that the secret of their success lies in a culture that promotes innovative thinking as a way of life.

Leaders in such organizations compel their people to think about how everything around them can get better. Even while they are on the top, they appreciate and respect the fact that the only way to retain that position is by exploring new directions to deliver better products, reducing costs, producing faster and keeping customers happy.
Every organization irrespective of its size has to innovate to survive and thrive. Here are my Top Seven Advices on what they can to do keep themselves alive in business:
    Never rest on past laurels because any new comer with a better offering can topple you from the top.
    Do not wait for opportunities; create them by looking for new trends and developments.
    Keep abreast of any new technology in you field and be among the first few ones to test it, if need be train your people on it and adopt it for your business.
    Talk to people associated with your business, your customers, vendors, employees and take their suggestions and ideas on how things can be better.
    Create a culture of having creative brainstorming sessions in your organization, as they will constantly feed you with insights for small improvements and can also pay way for break though ideas.  
    Gain fresh perspectives of your business from every possible source like journals, magazines, seminars, television etc.
    Every quarter ask this question to all your team members: What are the 3 things you or our company most need to change?
Let us part with this thought: ‘People who change after change will survive; people who change with change will succeed; people who cause change will lead’. So, go on and lead, don’t just survive!