Leveraging Innovation Networks

How can you make the most of your social and business networks to transform your business and quickly innovate to stay ahead of the competition?

In today’s modern world, innovation can often mean the different between success and failure. Sticking with the same business model and range of products or services in the fast-moving world of business can leave you lagging behind. To gain a competitive edge and to maintain a fresh portfolio of attractive and unique products your business must be able to innovate. Innovation is not a simple process and it involves a great deal of careful planning and cooperation. It is advisable to create an innovation network that runs throughout your organization to enable those responsible for creating new ideas to communicate.

An innovation network should contain the brightest and most dedicated members of staff that you can truly rely on. If your network has no passion or drive, it will ultimately fall short and fail to deliver. Once you have a core team that includes staff from various departments in your business, you should then give them adequate facilities and equipment to communicate with each other and carry out their work. Consider creating email lists, instant messaging groups or provide conference call facilities.

Support is also key to developing a successful innovation network – Regularly convene with the team and monitor their progress – Do they need any assistance? Do they have an adequate amount of allocated resources and funding? Could their processes and efficiency be improved? Make conclusions, review your findings and make adjustments as necessary.
Once you have established this dedicated innovation network the results should quickly become apparent – Your organization will benefit greatly from this motivated and well-connected team. As time progresses, their methodology and processes should become refined and you should easily be able to cope with market changes and maintain an innovative product portfolio.

Looking forward to your feedback on this blog post and to sharing knowledge with you.

This blog was originally posted on Leveraging Networks
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