There are so many benefits to being small in business. You can respond faster, change faster, less overhead, more personal so that workers feel needed, You are closer to the customer and the list goes on and on. However, the down side can be that small businesses are less likely to innovate and here are some of the reasons why:
1. Small business owners are notorious for being so busy and focused on production that they don’t have time or inclination to innovate. It’s hard to break away from production to focus on innovation especially when you are a team of one or two.
2. Innovation works best when there is lots of input from many diverse perspectives. Most small business owners only see those on their payroll as possible sources of innovative input rather than including business partners and customers in the mix.
3. Innovation is not a direct path to cash. It takes vision, intuition, patience and discipline to take time away from what is currently paying the bills and give it to a “maybe” in the future. This is especially true if there isn’t much extra cash available for that kind of investment. However, even great cash rich companies like General Electric don’t just plunk down the cash for investing in innovation first and ask questions later. The current head of General Electric Jeff Immelt worked very hard to streamline company operations and simplify back office processes so that he would have cash available for “Imagination Break Throughs” (his term for innovation focus).
So, there is certainly an order to being able to create break through innovation in a business. It starts with scheduling time to get innovative input from your now enlarged team and being specific about where you are looking for improvement ideas. Again, a great area to start zeroing in your teams innovative input is greater simplicity of operations so that time and mental capacity is freed up for bigger innovation. Once you begin to focus on the goal of making innovation a consistent source of products and profits your process will become normal and even habit forming. So, for you reluctant small business owners, think like a big company and remember innovation can improve production.
1. Small business owners are notorious for being so busy and focused on production that they don’t have time or inclination to innovate. It’s hard to break away from production to focus on innovation especially when you are a team of one or two.
2. Innovation works best when there is lots of input from many diverse perspectives. Most small business owners only see those on their payroll as possible sources of innovative input rather than including business partners and customers in the mix.
3. Innovation is not a direct path to cash. It takes vision, intuition, patience and discipline to take time away from what is currently paying the bills and give it to a “maybe” in the future. This is especially true if there isn’t much extra cash available for that kind of investment. However, even great cash rich companies like General Electric don’t just plunk down the cash for investing in innovation first and ask questions later. The current head of General Electric Jeff Immelt worked very hard to streamline company operations and simplify back office processes so that he would have cash available for “Imagination Break Throughs” (his term for innovation focus).
So, there is certainly an order to being able to create break through innovation in a business. It starts with scheduling time to get innovative input from your now enlarged team and being specific about where you are looking for improvement ideas. Again, a great area to start zeroing in your teams innovative input is greater simplicity of operations so that time and mental capacity is freed up for bigger innovation. Once you begin to focus on the goal of making innovation a consistent source of products and profits your process will become normal and even habit forming. So, for you reluctant small business owners, think like a big company and remember innovation can improve production.
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