29/11/2019 Use innovation to grow your business

GUIDE

Use innovation to grow your business

The successful exploitation of new ideas is crucial to a business being able to improve its processes, bring new and
improved products and services to market, increase its efficiency and, most importantly, improve its profitability.

Marketplaces - whether local, regional, national or global - are becoming highly competitive. Competition has
increased as a result of wider access to new technologies and the increased trading and knowledge-sharing
opportunities offered by the Internet.

This guide explains how you can make innovation a key business process and outlines the different approaches you
can take. It gives you advice on planning for innovation and creating the right business environment to develop your
ideas. It also outlines the help and support available to innovative businesses.

- The business case for innovation

- Approaches to innovation
- Planning innovation
- Encourage innovation in your business
- Funding innovation

The business case for innovation

It is important to be clear about the difference between invention and innovation. Invention is a new idea. Innovation is
the commercial application and successful exploitation of the idea.

Fundamentally, innovation means introducing something new into your business. This could be:

- improving or replacing business processes to increase efficiency and productivity, or to enable the business to
extend the range or quality of existing products and/or services
- developing entirely new and improved products and services - often to meet rapidly changing customer or
consumer demands or needs
- adding value to existing products, services or markets to differentiate the business from its competitors and
increase the perceived value to the customers and markets

Innovation can mean a single major breakthrough – e.g. a totally new product or service. However, it can also be a
series of small, incremental changes.

Whatever form it takes, innovation is a creative process. The ideas may come from:

- inside the business, e.g. from employees, managers or in-house research and development work
- outside the business, e.g. suppliers, customers, media reports, market research published by another organisation,
or universities and other sources of new technologies

Success comes from filtering those ideas, identifying those that the business will focus on and applying resources to
exploit them.

Introducing innovation can help you to:

- improve productivity
By continuing
- reduce to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and the use of cookies to offer you content and services
costs
- be more competitive tailored to your interests. Learn more about our Privacy Policy ×
https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/ 1/5
29/11/2019 Use innovation to grow your business

- build the value of your brand

- establish new partnerships and relationships
- increase turnover and improve profitability

Businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of:

- losing market share to competitors

- falling productivity and efficiency
- losing key staff
- experiencing steadily reducing margins and profit
- going out of business

Approaches to innovation
Innovation in your business can mean introducing new or improved products, services or processes.

Analyse the marketplace

There's no point considering innovation in a vacuum. To move your business forward, study your marketplace and
understand how innovation can add value to your customers. For more information on analysing your marketplace,
see the page in this guide on planning innovation.

Identify opportunities for innovation

You can identify opportunities for innovation by adapting your product or service to the way your marketplace is
changing. For example, if you're a specialist hamburger manufacturer, you might consider lowering the fat content in
your burgers to appeal to the health-conscious consumer.

You could also develop your business by identifying a completely new product. For example, you could start
producing vegetarian as well as meat burgers.

You could innovate by introducing new technology, techniques or working practices - perhaps using better processes
to give a more consistent quality of product.

If research shows people have less time to go to the stores, you could overhaul your distribution processes, offering
customers a home-delivery service, possibly tied in with online and telephone ordering.

If your main competitor's products have a reputation for being cheap and cheerful, rather than trying to undercut them
on price you could innovate by revamping your marketing to emphasise the quality of your merchandise - and
consider charging a premium for them.

Planning innovation
Some innovative ideas may just come to you out of the blue. However, you should ideally have:

- innovation as part of your business strategy

- a strategic vision of how you want your business to develop - if you dedicate your time to monitoring trends in
your business sector, you can then focus your innovative efforts on the most important areas.

Innovation will not only improve the chances of your business surviving, but also help it to thrive and drive increased
profits. There are lots of practical ways of assessing whether your ideas have profit potential:

Assess the competition

Find out who your competitors are and where they operate. Use the Internet and advertising sources such as the
Yellow Pages to find out about their products, prices and operating culture. This can give you an overview of their
selling points, as well as any areas you might be able to exploit.

For example, if the competition is focused on value for money, you might want to emphasise the quality of your
product or service. Searchtailored
for business
to yourlistings nationwide
interests.
Canada411.ca (http://www.canada411.ca/) websites.
on about
Learn more (http://www.yellowpages.ca/) or
our Privacy Policy ×
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and the use of cookies to offer you content and services
the YellowPages.ca

https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/ 2/5
29/11/2019 Use innovation to grow your business

Study market or industry trends

Awareness of the climate in which your business is operating will help you to plan.

You can find a lot of information about your industry on the Internet. Business and trade magazines will also feature
useful articles.

Build a relationship with your customers

It's not enough simply to know who your customer base is. You need to communicate effectively with them as well.

Communication involves not only listening to their needs but also actively observing their behaviour around current
products and services and generating ideas on how you can make improvements.

Involve your suppliers and other business partners

Pooling your resources with your suppliers or other business partners will help to produce and develop creative ideas.
Potential partnerships can also be developed through business networking opportunities.

Next, consider what taking a particular innovative step could mean for your business. Ask yourself:

- what impact it will have on your business processes and practices

- what extra training your staff may require
- what extra resources you may need
- how you'll finance the work
- whether you'll be creating any intellectual property that will need protecting

Finally, you should include your vision in your business plan by:

- putting down your goals, both long and short term and detailing how you intend to achieve them
- linking goals to financial targets, such as achieving a specific turnover by a set date
- reviewing your plan regularly

Encourage innovation in your business

There are many sources you can use to help generate new ideas for the business.

Suppliers, business partners and business network contacts can all make valuable contributions to the creative
process, as well as providing support and encouragement.

Your employees are also a vital asset in generating innovative ideas.

To get the most from them, you need to create an innovative environment and encourage creative thinking.

Steps to promote innovation

- Make sure you have processes and events to capture ideas. For example, you could set up suggestion boxes
around the workplace or hold regular workshops or occasional company away days to brainstorm ideas.
- Create a supportive atmosphere in which people feel free to express their ideas without the risk of criticism or
ridicule.
- Encourage risk taking and experimentation - don't penalise people who try new ideas that fail.
- Promote openness between individuals and teams. Good ideas and knowledge in one part of your business
should be shared with others. Teamwork, newsletters and intranets can all help your people share information and
encourage innovation.
- Stress that people at all levels of the business share responsibility for innovation, so everybody feels involved in
taking the business forward. The fewer the layers of management or decision making in your organisation, the
more people feel their ideas matter.
- Reward innovation and celebrate success. Appropriate incentives can play a significant role in encouraging staff to
By think creatively.
continuing
creativity
tailored to yourwhen recruiting
interests. Learn new
moreemployees.
always those with the most impressive list of qualifications.
Remember
about our Privacy ×
to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and the use of cookies to offer you content and services
- Look for imagination and that innovative thinkers aren't
Policy

https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/ 3/5
29/11/2019 Use innovation to grow your business

Funding innovation
There are a number of ways you can fund your growth through innovation, either by using your own funds or tapping
into external funding such as loans or equity finance.

However, any route to external funding will need a high-quality business plan that describes your business and sets
out detailed forecasts of where it's going.

Businesses often turn to their banks for a line of credit or loans for additional finance, depending on their borrowing
needs.

If you're willing to relinquish some control of your business to external investors, you could consider using equity
finance. The two main routes for this are investment from business angels and venture capital firms:

- Business angels are wealthy individuals who invest in private companies, typically from $30,000 to $500,000.
- Venture capital firms provide higher levels of investment in return for shares in the business.

Government programs

You may also wish to consider applying for a government program. This will only usually cover part of your project, but
you will retain control of the shares in your business. Consult Programs - R&D and innovation (http://www.infoentr
epreneurs.org/en/search/?page=1&type_de_contenu=programme&sujet=innovation).

Other sources of help

Small and medium-sized businesses can claim tax refunds and credits (http://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/sear
ch/?page=1&fin_type=tax+refunds+and+credits) on appropriate research and development spending.

Original document, Use innovation to grow your business, © Crown copyright 2009
Source: Business Link UK (now GOV.UK/Business (https://www.gov.uk/business))
Adapted for Québec by Info entrepreneurs

Our information is provided free of charge and is intended to be helpful to a large range of UK-based
(gov.uk/business) and Québec-based (infoentrepreneurs.org) businesses. Because of its general nature the
information cannot be taken as comprehensive and should never be used as a substitute for legal or professional
advice. We cannot guarantee that the information applies to the individual circumstances of your business. Despite
our best efforts it is possible that some information may be out of date.

As a result:

- The websites operators cannot take any responsibility for the consequences of errors or omissions.
- You should always follow the links to more detailed information from the relevant government department or
agency.
- Any reliance you place on our information or linked to on other websites will be at your own risk. You should
consider seeking the advice of independent advisors, and should always check your decisions against your normal
business methods and best practice in your field of business.
- The websites operators, their agents and employees, are not liable for any losses or damages arising from your
use of our websites, other than in respect of death or personal injury caused by their negligence or in respect of
fraud.

By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and the use of cookies to offer you content and services
tailored to your interests. Learn more about our Privacy Policy ×
https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/ 4/5
29/11/2019 Use innovation to grow your business

Contact
About Us
Create my account

The address of this page is:

https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/

380 St-Antoine West

Suite W204 (mezzanine level)
Montréal, Québec, Canada
H2Y 3X7

www.infoentrepreneurs.org

514-496-4636 | 888-576-4444
info@infoentrepreneurs.org

By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and the use of cookies to offer you content and services
tailored to your interests. Learn more about our Privacy Policy ×
https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/use-innovation-to-grow-your-business/ 5/5