It’s no news that 20% of businesses fail within the first year, 50% within the next five years, and only 25% make it to 15 years and more. The hard-to-swallow truth is that this blizzard of facts can unsettle even the most courageous new small business owner.
Why are these figures striking? Why do most businesses fail?
Well, the reasons are not farfetched. The reasons range from business plan problems, bad business location, not having the right team, and mismanagement of funds or finances to having zero plans for continuous innovation. This leads us to…
What is continuous innovation?
In a world where people have few seconds of attention span, it’s hard for businesses to keep offering stagnant services and products and remain successful.
Consumers are only interested in the latest model of whatever product they are interested in. This is where continuous innovation comes into play.
And, because there is increased demand for a new product or service doesn’t mean it will remain that way forever.
Continuous innovation implies that your business or company has to come up with newer implementations of products or services from time to time. What does it mean? We are glad you asked.
Let’s imagine hypothetically, your company stores data in paper file formats. Later on, you moved on to digital CRM storage. And now, this is 2023, you store data on the cloud. Why? Cloud is the newer model of storing data that makes retrieval easy as batting an eyelid. Something you couldn’t achieve with paper file formats or digital CRM storage.
This simple logic explained above can be applied to all business products and services.
What’s the big deal about continuous innovation?
We are in constant flux; times are changing which inadvertently implies that demands are changing too. Every business has competitors except if you’re selling off unicorn horns.
Your company or business must strive to maintain forward momentum at all times. You must always provide your customers with enough motivation to patronize you or you watch your business crumble and become just another random business numbered among failed businesses.
Some of the advantages of continuous innovation are:
Business growth. The need to make consistent improvements to your business cannot be overemphasized as it will contribute to an expanding company and keep you ahead of your competitors.
In your journey to staying ahead of your competitors, you will also need resources. We recommend Bizop as the go-to for business resources.
Improves customer satisfaction. The competitive landscape keeps getting tougher. Customers don’t want you offering the same old solutions to their problems. They need something quicker or better. Continuous innovation helps you achieve this.
This will make you stand out from the rest of your competitors.
Increased productivity. When you pursue continuous innovation in your company, you encourage your employees to think outside the box and come up with new ideas or solutions to existing problems.
To put it simply, continuous innovation can transform passive employees into active participants or business key players leading to increased productivity.
On a final note
For those asking if continuous innovation is risky. Well, it’s not riskier than product development or starting a new company.
If you want your business to continuously remain relevant or successful, you must employ continuous innovation as a strategy to achieve that. And, with the right business resources from the right place, you’re good to go!