Why Continuous Product Innovation Matters
Why Continuous Product Innovation Matters
April 17, 2024
When you create something new, such as different ideas, methods, products, or services, that results in some kind of progress, innovation happens. During the last twenty years, the only aspect that has remained constant is the urgency of businesses to produce leverage over the competition.
In this article, we will cover why continuous product innovation matters for your business, and their importance within an ever-evolving technological landscape.
Product Innovation
Businesses can’t maintain their position in the market undervaluing the need to pursue constant improvement. Innovation goes hand in hand with growth, once differentiation is the condition that attracts clients and, usually, increases sales revenue. The product innovation process is a cornerstone of success within the business realm.
Product innovation has an evident impact on business growth and sustainability because it defines if a company can stay competitive and relevant in its specific industry. It drives revenue growth, enhances satisfaction, strengthens the brand, and enables companies to adapt to changing market dynamics.
Over time, product innovation has evolved from incremental improvements to disruptive breakthroughs, fuelled by advances in technology, changes in consumer behaviour, and globalisation.
What Drives the Need for Digital Innovation?
Understanding the forces behind digital innovation is vital for organisations aiming to thrive in their environment. Factors driving the need for continuous product innovation in today’s market rely on intensifying competition, rapid technological advancements, changing consumer preferences, and shorter product life cycles, which are among the key drivers for continuous innovation in products and services.
Businesses face intense competition on a global scale, with startups and tech giants alike disrupting established markets and challenging preconceived structures and ideas.
80% Consider Innovation the Core Strength
Innovation can help you develop unique products and services that set you apart from competitors. It isn’t a universal and unquestionable truth, but over 80% of digital mature companies say innovation is one of their core strengths. Accordingly, a study carried out by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte also revealed that there is a significant gap between mature and recent enterprises, and it’s related to the approach to innovation.
“Digitally maturing companies are not only innovating more”, but they’re also innovating differently – concludes the study. Digitally maturing companies innovate at far higher rates than their less mature counterparts.
Innovation Impact on Big Organisations
Amazon is an example of how a giant’s innovation view extended the B2C model to a B2B strategy to improve the customer’s experience. It provided a marketplace for businesses to purchase from Amazon and third parties. Individuals can also make purchases on behalf of their organisations and integrate order approval workflows and reporting.
Like the video rental company Blockbuster, Netflix also had a pay-per-rental model, which included DVD sales and rent-by-mail services. However, Netflix anticipated a change in customer demand with rising digitalization and provided online entertainment.
Product Innovation Framework
Before delving into the creative stage, in the initial phase, businesses conduct extensive market research to understand trends, customer needs, and the competitive scenario. Technology assessments are crucial to evaluate emerging technologies and their potential application inside the marketplace.
When the time for ideas arrives, cross-functional teams start to carry on brainstorming sessions, ideation workshops, etc, with the support of analytic tools.
Once promising insights are identified, they need to be shaped into a concept, and a further prototype or mockup to visualise and test workability. Then it’s the moment to validate by exposing the idea to the user and registering the feedback.
Benefits of Technological Products Innovation
Technological tools and innovations are factors that bring more protagonists to the table. A simple example is the Internet, which allowed small businesses to show their products to the public target, worldwide, almost without cost.
Innovation isn’t just about out-of-the-box solutions, but also, and especially, linked to an effort to keep costs to a minimum: with the implementation of automation. Businesses try to reduce their dependency on human beings in several processes. Consequently, the corporation can decrease salaries, benefits, and turnover. Technology can assist in optimizing the production process, cutting down on costly inefficiencies.
Businesses should not underestimate the power of creation, and the pursuit of constant upgrades by identifying what is wrong and what could be done better. This continuous product innovation mentality is responsible for keeping an organic, alive, and dynamic environment within the competitive tech realm.
For all of those reasons, we want to know if you are ready to empower your team with innovative IT solutions.
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