These days, the word “innovation” is used all too often, and many people, both consumers and business owners, have a twofold attitude toward this concept. Do you think that in the current economic situation the introduction of innovation is the norm, or is it rather the exception? Is it accepted in your business to use an innovative approach, including for sales management?
Many SMEs argue that innovation is out of reach for them because they don’t have the resources. They believe that this is a story about huge budgets, expensive software products and robots instead of secretaries, that this is a resource of the “gods” that only giants like Google or Yandex can afford. But I will say that innovation is the norm, and the norm precisely because at the time of structural changes in consumer demand, when the customer’s needs really change, an innovative approach helps to identify these needs and offer a product that can meet them, and therefore will be in demand in the market.
Let’s understand what innovation is. Many people are intimidated by this word because they don’t understand what it means. I will use the definition of famous futurists and the definition that you can easily find on the Internet.
An innovation is an implemented innovation that provides a qualitative increase in the efficiency of processes or products, demanded by the market.
This definition has two very important nuances on which we would like to focus attention. Firstly, it does not refer to any innovation, but to the implemented one. Implemented means demanded by the market. Let me give a simple example. At the time when Leonardo da Vinci was trying to create flying machines, people had no need to fly; they did not understand why they were needed. Thus, the wings he invented are not an innovation, but an invention, something that did not exist before then.
These wings could have become an innovation if there was a person who could convince others that this is exactly what they need, that the wings would make them super-fast, mobile, change their lives. And when he, along with a brilliant inventor, proved to people that they needed wings, and they started to buy them, the invention would become an innovation. In other words, if consumers are willing to pay for something new, it is implemented. This is the difference between innovation and invention.
Second, the definition of innovation talks about increasing efficiency. This means that innovation does not have to be something like a flying board or a spacecraft. If your company, let’s say, always served customers at the reception, and you had a line of ten people in front of you, and then you invented a mobile application that allows them to order while they are riding the subway, and they won’t waste time waiting, that can also be considered an innovation.
In other words, innovation is anything that can improve the customer experience, i.e. lead to an increase in purchases and customer loyalty. Improvements can be not only of a technical nature, sometimes it is enough just to change the behavior of your staff. For example, if your employees were unpleasant with customers, but after the new rules were introduced they smiled at them, made jokes, etc., this could also increase sales.
You must see innovation as an improvement to something, however small and low-cost to the company, but significant to the consumer. Thinking this way, you begin to look for those products or services which can improve the quality of life of your customer and for which he will be willing to pay.
It is very important to understand how innovation can affect sales. Customers’ preferences change, and keeping track of their new desires, coupled with finding ways to meet their emerging needs, is the best strategy to ensure successful sales in today’s unstable world.
