Showing posts with label Small Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small Business. Show all posts

Thursday 17 December 2015

HOW INNOVATION WILL BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS

If you are conversant with the foreign exchange market in Nigeria, at least you already know that the Naira is exchanging for as much as 260 for 1 dollar. It will be so easy to blame the government for poor monetary policies, but look around you, how many ‘made in Nigeria’ goods are people buying? Nigeria spent about N1.6tn on importation alone in Q1 of 2015. At this rate, there is no reason why the naira will not continue to fall as long as Nigerian businesses give consumers reasons to patronize foreign products. For instance, to fix tiles in the house, we rely on foreigners because most Nigerian businesses do a poor job.
The problem is not just in people not patronising made in Nigeria products, but their lack of confidence regarding the quality of the product, poor creativity and occasionally, high price compared to the quality. I can make excuses for highprice, but not quality and creativity of a Nigerian product.
Many small business owners in Nigeria are yet to compete because they lack the creativity and innovation required to be successful in business. Small businesses should be the champions of innovative thinking because what they lack in terms of capital, they made through innovative ideas. As we enter the New Year, here are few benefits of managing an innovation-oriented business.
Innovation creates more value for your business
Customers buy value, not product. Innovation helps you to create and add more value to your product at a relatively lower cost. When you manage an innovation focused business, your primary assignment will always be to make available improved product or services at a cheaper price. 
Innovation helps you make a balance between quality and cost. Small business owners should devote time to producing quality products/services with additional features, and the problem of lack of patronage for locally produced goods will be taken care of. Spend more time reviewing your product/service with the aim of identifying potential values that customers will be willing to pay for.

It gives you a Competitive advantage
Innovation gives you an edge in business. Take innovation away, no small business will be able to compete effectively in the market. Innovation whether in terms of products, services or even processes distinguishes you from the lot, and gives you a unique identity and position in the market. 
While some big businesses compete based on innovation, others like Dangote group are only surviving not because there is anything innovative about their products, but they have the capital and government backing. If you don’t have the capital or government backing to compete in the market, identifying areas your product or service can provide better solution can help you gain a competitive advantage in the market, because nothing places any business above board like innovation.

It enhances your business reputation
Innovation wins your customers’ confidence. I know of people who are addicted to anything with the Apple brand on it. They don’t question it, they just buy it. This is possible because Apple Inc has built an expectation in their customers, so they don’t have to question their products. 
When customers see how innovative your business has been over time, they develop confidence in your brand, and stick to it. Your business reputation is more important and valuable than the quick profit you want to make. Innovating in business doesn’t come easy but with persistence, you are certain of a great outcome.

Embedding innovation as an integral part of your business activities is the most challenging task; however it is your only choice for growth and competitiveness in the coming year.

Thursday 19 November 2015

How to create innovation culture in your business


One of the characteristics of great organisations is the ability to develop a culture of innovation. This is a culture that puts a system in place to help the business always develop new-to-the-market products as well as improve on existing products seamlessly. It will be a herculean task bridging the gap between your business, the market and your customers if innovation is not a way of life in your company.

Innovation is like a switch, without turning on the right knob, it will not be enabled to work for your business. In Nigeria, many businesses are yet to enable the innovation culture; they still operate a laggard culture i.e. they are slow to innovate, they focus most of their abilities refurbishing or repairing past innovative successes and soon, they are driven out of the market without knowing it – the Blackberry Company is an example. They have perfectly developed a culture to renovate (fixing current problems) rather than developing a culture that will enable innovation (building and testing new solutions) in their businesses.

If your business is stuck already in the renovation culture, it’s time to stop fixing problems with old solutions. You need to move away from repairs, restoration, and reconstruction of ideas to novelty, advancement and originality of ideas by building a culture of innovation into your business. Here are a few steps you can take towards developing a culture of innovation in your business:

Decide what innovation really means to your business
Culture is a way of life, and what makes a culture tick is the shared language and understanding of phenomenon. Building a culture of innovation requires every member of your organisation to speak the ‘same language,’ and have a common understanding of what innovation means to the business. This common understanding of innovation in turn reflects on every task carried out in your company. Organisations define innovation differently, and this definition is affected by the availability of resources as well as the goals the businesses set out to achieve hence, you cannot define innovation in your business the way your competitor did. You will never get the same result.

Make learning a habit
The first law of innovation is learning and acquiring new knowledge. It is knowledge that drives innovation. Creating an innovation culture entails being a ‘learning company.’ Open up the information system within your organisation, work on improving the level of interaction among employees on one hand, and with the outside world on the other. There is nothing like a lone genius, great innovations came about as a result of multiple interactions amongst people. Like Tom Kelly, CEO of the design firm IDEO pointed out, “Y our only real path to innovation is through people. You can’t really do it alone.” Learning as much as possible from both within and outside your business puts you in a better position to always innovate.


Change your perception of risk
Nothing fuels innovation like a free atmosphere to exercise your mind. Many organisations are slow to innovate even with smart employees because there is no room for failure. Developing a culture of innovation in your company requires creating an atmosphere where people are not afraid to fail. While it is good to be cautious in taking certain business decisions, care needs to be taken to avoid shutting out ideas that may yield innovative products. According to NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, UK, “Make it routine and acceptable to talk about ideas that were tried but ‘failed’. Work from the mindset that the only ‘failure’ is the failure to learn, and that not sharing and learning from things that don’t go as planned is waste and lost productivity” When innovating, don’t think of success or failure of an attempt, rather talk about the lessons learned.


Finally, while moving from a culture of renovation to innovation is challenging, entrepreneurs must see to it that they nurture an environment that will introduce new ideas and new ways of thinking by modelling their business strategy around innovation, and developing a system that challenges the norm.

Monday 19 October 2015

3 Considerations Before You Push the Autopilot Button in Business

           
The ultimate aim of any small business owner is to get to a stage where the business becomes self sustaining or what I refer to it as ‘putting your business on auto pilot.’ That is allowing your business to run with little or no supervision from the owner. This is an error I have discovered recently from some small business owners who have a lot of ideas they want to explore. They are so enthusiastic about their ideas that they want to take all of them to the market at the same time.  While it is good to hands off, as it shows that the business has matured enough to do without you, an entrepreneur must get the timing right.

A friend recently launched a new business. The quality and features of his product was his major selling point and customers loved it. 6 months later, I was invited to assess the business performance and make recommendations. Amongst other things, I observed that my friend never stays around to monitor the activities going on in his business. When I asked, his response was that he wanted to allow the business to run on its own so that he can focus on establishing other things. Great as that may sound, I told him it was too early, and the move was wrong. As usual, he told me “I know what I am doing”
Recently, he told me he was not breaking even and cost was driving him out of business. He then said, “I am not losing customers, but I can’t explain why I am not making profit.”  He couldn’t explain ‘why?’

The early stage of your business is not a time for exploring other business activities, it’s a time to consolidate on what you have, identify the direction and learn more about your current business. Like my friend, you may not be losing customers, cost is going up, and you are not gaining new customers because you are yet to learn the uniqueness of your business. You are yet to identify means to efficiently and effectively satisfy both new and old customers.
The early years of your business is a time for
·         Building a system
There is no better time to put a structure in place than the early days of business. You have to build a structure that will distinguish you in the market and set you on the path of growth.
·         Strengthening strategy
As you grow daily in business, so does your strategy grow older. Handling the activities in your business helps you reinforce your strategies, and better define your business vision.
·         Knowing your customers better
If you are not losing customers, and it cost you more to service the same customers, then there is something about your customers/client that you are missing.


The airways of business are too rocky for you to put your business on auto pilot as a young start-up. The early days of your business are too important to be left under the care of someone else. It should be a time of learning and experimenting, testing strategies and bringing in of creative and innovative ideas into your operation. This cannot be achieved without continuous and systematic innovative activities by business owners.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

3 Key Features of a Generative Business



I read a material on The Benefits of Giving Away What Your Company Knows by CV Harquail. Using Buffer as a case study, Harquail discussed how businesses can benefit from sharing what they know with others. According to her, generative businesses are "designing their business practices, their relationships, and their business models so that the work they do to grow their own businesses helps their stakeholders grow too."

When you view old methods in a new way, it helps your business to adjust to the changing circumstances.

 Generative organisations or businesses are simply those businesses that are able to create or bring into being something new, or to give rise to new possibilities. For instance new ideas, new processes etc. The create opportunities for others while they grow.


Below are the key features of a generative business as discussed by C.V. Harquail.
  1. They design their work processes to power their own growth while sharing what they know, creating opportunities for other businesses to learn, experiment, or challenge themselves.
  2. They build an ecosystem of mutually supportive relationships with and between their stakeholders, so the group as a whole can benefit from interactions across the network.
  3. They create financial value as well as social value, which includes non-financial positive outcomes such as purpose, meaning, community, expression, and learning.
As good as this sounds, how small businesses will benefit from being generative is still not very clear especially when they have to deal with survival. In Nigeria for instance, small businesses are very secretive, and may not want to share any knowledge that will help other stakeholders especially competitors. How do you know what amount of information to give away is one question yet to be answered. 
In spite of that, this is a principle small businesses should imbibe as they grow. By helping others grow, you gain new ideas and achieve better results. 

Something is “generative” when it’s able to originate or produce something, or to give rise to new possibilities.
  • Generative ideas produce new ideas,
  • Generative process produces new ways of doing things or new outcomes,
  • Generative learning enhances our ability to create,
  • Generative relationships build new capabilities in both partners, and
  • Generative leadership helps others see opportunity in their actions.
Generative practices are important because they make new things possible. They have the capacity for ‘more’ built right in.
- See more at: http://authenticorganizations.com/harquail/2013/12/11/whats-a-generative-organization/#sthash.SbkIoejd.dpuf
Something is “generative” when it’s able to originate or produce something, or to give rise to new possibilities.
  • Generative ideas produce new ideas,
  • Generative process produces new ways of doing things or new outcomes,
  • Generative learning enhances our ability to create,
  • Generative relationships build new capabilities in both partners, and
  • Generative leadership helps others see opportunity in their actions.
Generative practices are important because they make new things possible. They have the capacity for ‘more’ built right in.
- See more at: http://authenticorganizations.com/harquail/2013/12/11/whats-a-generative-organization/#sthash.SbkIoejd.dpuf