Innovation and Strategic Management

Innovation and Strategic Management

Discuss the importance of innovation in the survival and success of a business. Next, suggest three (3) strategies that you, as an entrepreneur, can use to encourage creativity and innovation in your small business. Provide support for your response.

Analyze a current or former company for which you have worked, and without revealing the name of the organization, identify one (1) step in the strategic planning process that could use more attention in this business. Explain your rationale.

Innovation is an important aspect in business for it to grow, it is the constant improvement of ideas or strategies in the business. If businesses implement innovation, then they are likely to improve their production, processes, have new and better products in the business, and have improved customer service. In addition, it will gain a competitive advantage since through increased efficiency, it improves profitability. There are strategies that small businesses can implement to boost creativity and innovation including intrapreneurship, this means having someone who comes up with ideas that can be implemented in the company. If employees are encouraged to come up with ideas and rewarded for good ideas, then they are more likely to come up with more (Hotho, 2011).

Diversity in a workplace ensures that people of diverse backgrounds, skills, and talents come up with more creative and innovative ideas (Mazzei, 2016). Third, encouraging employees to research within and outside the business and exploring their passions which will encourage them to come up with ideas that help the business achieve its goals and objectives faster. For instance, if someone was on the internet and discovered something that would be good for the business, then they should be given a chance to experiment to see if it works, if it does then they are rewarded but if it fails, the business embraces the failure and learns from it. If company A constantly evaluates the gap in the business that they could fulfill, then they could easily gain a competitive advantage. The goals of the business should be renewed constantly to ensure that businesses keep up with the contemporary trends else it will not grow.

References

Hotho, S., & Champion, K. (2011). Small businesses in the new creative industries: innovation as a people management challenge. Management Decision.

Mazzei, M. J., Flynn, C. B., & Haynie, J. J. (2016). Moving beyond initial success: Promoting innovation in small businesses through high-performance work practices. Business Horizons, 59(1), 51-60.