Innovation, fresh thinking and new ideas are all bantered around in the business world today, but what do they actually mean for a business that wants to seriously remain competitive and successful? questions Christopher Melotti, marketer, author and copywriter.

Most organisations fail to take innovative initiatives seriously and others believe they’re thinking outside of their square, but really are underestimating its potential. In today’s turbulent commercial world, innovation is necessary for simple survival, let alone success. It’s time all organisations, both big and small, wake up and start viewing themselves as competitive entities, scanning the horizons for dangerous threats and exciting new opportunities.

We’re Already In ‘The Future’

Business today isn’t simply changing- it has already changed. We’re already deep into an era of phenomenal and unpredictable commercial growth and evolution: segments are progressing, markets are fragmenting, demographics are blurring, consumers are vastly complicated, unique and extremely well informed, people are incredibly well connected, social media is soaring and all industries are shifting at exponential rates.

In not-so-rare-anymore examples, the change in an industry is so incredible that it almost never could’ve been imagined only a short year or so before. Take the whole Freemium model as an example, where products are no longer simply ‘paid for and owned’ anymore, but acquired for free and then compensated for with more creative, alternative ways. There are innovative organisation models in effect today, such as crowd sourcing content, skillshare, conscious consumerism amongst countless others, which are surviving successfully despite experts claiming that failure was inevitable.

As a result of this phenomenal era, big organisations accustomed to “same-same smooth-sailing” are under great threat, sometimes without even knowing it. They’re failing to grasp the seriousness and the complexity of this new age of rapid transformation; and not surprisingly too, given the diversity of the changes and the time frame it’s doing it in. However, complacency is not an excuse, especially if reputation, profitability and employment and are on the line.

With the surge of social media, big data and the internet, barriers to competitive entry have been filed down significantly, if not diminished almost completely in some cases. Smart competitors and challenger organisations are literally devoting their entire resource bank to picking holes in the ways things are being traditionally done, developing a new, different method, entering the market and then turning the entire product on its head within very short spaces of time, removing the rug from all other stake holders. By the same token, new and exciting opportunities present themselves constantly, sometimes in odd or unpredictable ways, just waiting for the right organisation to seize it and take full advantage for amazing success.

So, what’s the problem?

Innovation isn’t taken seriously. Its value is often underestimated and too difficult to predict or document. The blinkered financial outlook at the helm of a business cannot assign a monetary figure on the concept, and so its lack of tangibility means it’s ignored or seen as “something fun and sparkly that the Marketing department is up to again.”

Despite the countless examples of organisations that have greatly suffered due to lack of creative thinking and therefore their competitive edge (Kodak, Blockbuster, Borders, Dell, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toys’R’Us, Yahoo… do I need to go on?), most businesses seem to think that it will never happen to them. They believe that everything will remain as certain and predictable as they always have. Yet, they fail to see the water draining from beneath their soap bubble of ignorance.

Well established companies can often recognise the concept of ‘innovation’, but believe it to be a novel or interesting concept, and therefore fail to take it at all seriously. And the ones that do understand its importance still put it as a back-burner, rainy day project rather than an engrained culture or built into the organisational strategy. Even more alarming, most organisations when asked about how they perform innovatively, are so convinced that they are doing so and ‘moving with the times’ that they’re fooling themselves into believing they are. How can you truly act innovatively if you think your lacklustre attempt is enough?

Ironically, organisations which actively attempt to practise ‘innovative thinking’ have methodical processes, rules and guidelines to facilitate new ideas, and so, fresh new concepts and the trailing of new methods which could inevitably save an organisation in the future, are snuffed out by the very processes set in place to encourage them.

Innovation is the key to mere commercial survival in such an era as we have now, let alone success; write this down and plaster it on the walls in your office. While tried and tested methods do have their place- this cannot be discounted- they can (and should) no longer be just relied upon. Innovation and new ways of thinking must be embraced and encouraged by all organisations if they truly wish to continue to operate competitively into the future. Creative ideas and their application in creating solutions are the essential building blocks of innovation.

Not all innovation is profitable, but all is beneficial

That’s just get this out of the way. Not all ideas have merit or sprout instant rewards, however at very least, they spur an organisation to engage rather than just exist. It’s far better to be challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries, than performing the same black-and-white task for ten years, and then wondering where all of your customers have gone.

Single ideas that may not have distinction alone can often snowball into other ideas, or be merged with different concepts to eventually create that one gold nugget needed propel an organisation into that winning niche it so desperately needs.