30
Oct
Posted in Innovation by admin |
If you run or manage a business and want to be around a long time, you need to spend much of their time to innovate. This is because in a rapidly changing world where people expect things better and cheaper and cheaper, innovation is the way ahead of your competitors.
Here are 7 ways to put new life blood of your organization through innovation.
1. Create a climate of innovation. Goran Ekvall, University of Lund in Sweden has set three conditions for a climate of innovation. They are: confidence, enthusiasm and humor. One case study Ekvall was a Swedish newspaper of the team working on the women’s section is always surpassed all other teams. The reason? In short, this group trust each other, had a high energy level and share a good sense of humor.
2. Developing creativity for laundry. According to the institute Roffey Park Management, most flashes of inspiration come to people when they are unemployed and do not force your conscious brain to find solutions to their problems. For some, the ideas come while mowing the lawn or taking the dog for a walk or play golf or waiting at the station. Isaac Newton was an apple on his head as he sat in the garden. Archimedes, who was in the bathroom. For others, washing dishes, so Roffey Park calls these flashes of vision. “Wash Creativity”
3. Make new connections. Make new links between existing features of your product or service is a popular way to innovate. Akio Morita, Sony’s president, said he invented the Walkman because I wanted to listen to music while walking between golf shots. His team, just join two apparently incompatible products: a recorder and a radio transistor.
4. Find out what people need. The need is great motivation for innovation. Take, for example, writing paper. The Chinese had already taken the role of rags around the year 100 BC, but because there was no place for her, he did not. When he arrived in Europe during the Middle Ages, when the writing was in vogue, the supply of rags and cloth worn soon exhausted. That’s when a French naturalist, made the discovery that the wasps nest in the wood to chew on a puree of dried thin film. In 100 years, all paper was made with the idea of wood pulp.
5. Test, test, test. Product testing is most inventors and organizations ranging from innovation. It can not be the quickest route to success, but it is often safer. Jonas Salk, for example, found the vaccine against polio to spend most of their time testing and testing and constantly discover what was wrong. Thomas Edison invented the incandescent lamp, recorded 1300 experiments were a complete failure. But he was able to move forward because, he said, he knew 1,300 ways that would not work.
6. To adopt and adapt. A relatively easy approach to innovation is to realize how others cope with problems and adapt their solutions to their own. He is known as “adapt and adopt.” Watchmaker Swatch what when they realized that the most reliable watches in the city is less need to replace them. His solution? Borrowing an idea from the world of collections mode and turning their clocks desirable fashion accessory. Now people buy Swatch watches not only tell time, but because it is “cool” to do so.
7. Take lessons from nature. If you really want to be creative, you can not beat nature. The natural world offers us a lot of prototypes for use in our own world. Take Velcro, for example. Velcro was patented by George de Mestral in 1950 after returning from a hunting trip covered with small bumps that had been attached to clothing in layers of tiny hooks. De Mestral quickly realized that this was an ideal technique to hold the material together. A new way of doing things are invented suddenly.
World history is the history of innovation. Thomas Kuhn has called each acceptance of an innovation of a new “paradigm shift.” For once, a new innovation is accepted, the world has changed forever and will never be as before.
29
Jun
Posted in Branding by admin |
If you think only big corporate names, a big payday loans online corporate names for example, you need to think about things like brand names, think again. Your brand says a lot about you and your business, and that’s as true for a one person home-based operation as it is for a multinational conglomerate. In this article we look at how creating a strong brand for your business can help you set yourself apart from the pack and lay the right foundation for the future growth of your business.
WHAT IS A BRAND?
Your brand is more than just the logo on your letterhead and business cards or your business name. It is your corporate identity. An effective brand tells the world who you are, what you do and how you do it, while at the same time establishing your relevance to and credibility with your prospective customers.
Your brand is also something more ethereal. It is how your business is perceived by its customers. If your brand has a high perceived value, you enjoy many advantages over your competition, especially when it comes to pricing. Why do you think people are prepared to pay stupid money for items of clothing with the initials “CK” on them? Perceived value. Perceived value as a result of very effective brand promotion resulting in very high brand awareness.
Now, I’m not saying we all need to rush out and start creating brands that are going to be recognized the world over. Most of us simply don’t have the time or other resources necessary. What I am suggesting, however, is that it is possible for your brand to dominate your niche.
WHY DO I NEED TO CREATE MY OWN BRAND?
=> Differentiation
We touched on this in the previous section when we looked at what a brand is and how it can be used to increase the perceived value of your products and services. The main reason for creating your own brand is to differentiate yourself from your competition. New websites are a dime a dozen. So are home-based businesses. You need to constantly be looking for ways to set yourself apart from your competition. Your brand can do that for you.
=> More Effective, Efficient Marketing Read more… »
11
May
Posted in Business Strategy by admin |
Business management combines an interesting mix of theory and practice, and it is a particularly good topic for management and entrepreneurial types to study. Finding a business management style that suits your personality and the nature of your business is both important and worthy of time investment, as being self-aware and being able to identify strengths and weaknesses of various approaches will enable more effective personal development and ultimately more effective management.
While many have their own individual business management styles, these are traditionally broadly categorized into three main classes of business management approaches.
Autocratic Management
Firstly, there is what has come to be known as the autocratic approach to management, which installs more trust in the leadership as opposed to the individual staff. This involves pulling rank and leaves employees in no doubt as to whom the management is or what decisions are being made. Rather than engaging employees within the decision making process, this business management style typically concerns businesses that require direct, effective leadership to produce results, often under pressure of working in a tough environment. Upon hearing the term autocratic, many tend to visualise a dictatorial approach to management. While that is perhaps the case, it is seldom as strict as this and it is often a necessary management style, for example in the armed forces or in a high-paced trading environment, where there is no margin for deliberation and group consideration.
Democratic Management
Alternatively, there is a business management style known as the democratic style, where employees are effectively engaged in consultation before decisions are made. While some consider this to be more motivating and more enjoyable to work under, it does nevertheless have its own disadvantages. Giving employees a say may undermine the authority of the management, and may ultimately cause inefficiencies in the decision making process. It is also time intensive, and perhaps not as effective in larger organisations with thousands of employees. While of course at a board room level this kind of decision making goes on everyday, it’s one that works most effectively in slower paced business where decisions can be fully deliberated and considered.
Laissez Fair Management
An alternative to those two business management styles and the third main category is what’s known as the laissez fair management style. This is by definition a more hands-off approach to management, which puts the trust of running the business within the hands of employees themselves, and allows a greater degree of autonomy than would otherwise be the case. While this is strong in creative industries, some business people find that this style of management can lead to a fragmented approach to doing business and is less organised and perhaps less professional.
Whichever business management style you liken yourself to; there are advantages and disadvantages of that approach. What’s important is not that you recognize which of these categories you fall under, but rather that you’re aware of the improvements that can be made to make your management more effective and efficient while also improving the relationships you share with employees at all levels of the organization.