How to Embrace Innovation for your Business?

It seems there is a new way of doing business being created every week. Disruptive, technology driven, new business models are constantly being developed by the likes of Uber, Skype, Amazon and Air BnB.

Your business might hold an established position in the market today but that doesn’t mean that you and your management team can be complacent.

Disruption and commoditisation have impacted most industries and we are now seeing new players coming into traditional markets and establishing a disruptive model and capturing significant market share. This trend is only going to continue.

So what can you do, as the leader of your business, to minimise the impact of a potential disruptive new player entering your market?

It is difficult to constantly create new products or services. However, perhaps you could consider how best to commoditise some of your firm’s existing product or service offerings in order to increase profit margin and efficiency. This could also help you to improve customer experience – by making your services faster, easier to access and so forth.

When it comes to innovation, you don’t have to constantly re-invent the wheel. While creativity is usually associated with thinking outside the box, the fact is that few ideas are 100 percent original. The most brilliant (and often most profitable) business ideas are usually variations of an already existing theme rather than completely new concepts.

Netflix didn’t create a new industry. They just took the business model that had been so successful for Blockbuster Video and created a new way for customers to rent films - online instead of through a video shop. As Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” What sets creative people apart is that “they are able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

If you want to embrace innovation in your business, you need to develop an environment that encourages creativity. Your staff should be empowered to explore new ways of delivering products or services.

Experimentation should be encouraged and your office should have collaborative workspaces in order to allow people to sit down together, work as a team, solve problems collectively and create new solutions.  In addition to this, your business should celebrate innovation through recognising those team members who find new ways of doing things. Whether that is a bonus for implementing a new innovation or perhaps celebrating the delivery of new innovations with a team night out. The key is to encourage your team to be creative, find new and better ways of doing things and keep innovating.

Developing A Culture Of Accountability

One of the toughest balances to achieve within any business is between building a culture that gives people the autonomy to get on with their job while maintaining an environment of accountability.

There is a fine line between managing and micromanaging  and it tends to be quite subjective. Some team members will welcome day to day management and guidance while others might rather be left alone to get on with their job. As such, it is necessary to create systems and processes which allow the management team to maintain awareness of what is going on across the business without people feeling like someone is constantly checking on them.

Everyone in the firm should have annual goals which align with the overall objectives of the firm and are communicated to everyone across the business at the start of the year. Each individual should then be tasked with agreeing what their personal goals should be with their manager. These should cascade down from the overall objectives of the business. Ideally you should aim to agree between five and eight goals for each team member.

Once everyone’s objectives have been set, you and your management team should set up quarterly meetings with each of your staff to discuss progress towards achieving each objective. You should let your team member lead the meeting, explaining the progress they have made towards each goal and what they intend to do in the next quarter in order to keep moving forward. As a manager you should ask open questions such as “What went well? Which areas could be improved upon?” or “Do you need any additional resources in order to achieve your goals?” This will provide the opportunity to assist the individual towards successfully achieving their goals but in a way that doesn’t feel like they are being micro managed.

Finally, each team in your business should have a weekly meeting with an agenda designed to allow everyone to update what happened last week and what is planned for the next week. This provides an opportunity for managers / team leaders to drive objectives forward. In order to encourage accountability, at each weekly meeting, every team member should be required to give a 3-minute update on where they are against their objectives.

In order to make this approach work, the managers in your firm should be accountable for the objectives and their teams should be responsible for delivering them. In order to communicate progress across the business and increase transparency, each manager should produce a quarterly update, which can be shared across the firm. This could take the form of a simple email to all staff. This type of communication also allows the managers to outline what is coming up in the next quarter and solicit help / resources if required.

Importance of Gaining a Competitive Edge!

Competition is a fact of life. The best businesses set the pace and aren't afraid to go their own way. How do you and your firm respond to competition? Are you leaders, differentiators or do you follow the pack?

If you want to move ahead of your competitors, you need to change how your business positions itself within its sector of the market. After all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a definition of madness.

Being in business is about running your own race and doing it your way. Have a plan and execute it the way you want and at the pace you want to. Running after the competition is no good if they are running in the wrong direction.

Many businesses struggle to identify their competitive advantage and even those that do manage to define it, tend to be ineffective at communicating that advantage. Consider what it is that makes your business unique. What is it that sets your business apart from the competition?

Identify, clarify, and communicate to your prospects and customers why they should buy from you instead of from someone else. Some firms will focus on being the highest quality provider, others will choose to offer the better service or the lowest price.

If you don’t focus on your competitive advantage and communicate that to your clients and targets, you could lose customers. If you don’t try to differentiate your firm, they could mistake your competitors as being the same as you.

Tell your clients why you are different and what that difference means to them. Create a marketing message which explains the benefit that using your firm provides. It is important to “sell the benefit” of the service rather than to sell the service based on its features.

How to play office politics ethically and professionally?

Keeping your head down and working hard is important but we all know that in business you have to “play the game” and develop effective personal relationships with the key stakeholders across your firm. As such, networking with internal contacts is as important as networking with external customers and target clients.

The number one word for managing office politics is diplomacy. Keep it professional at all times and find common ground with key stakeholders across the business.

It is important to make sure that you understand what is really going on. Pay attention. What do you see? Who talks to who? Who doesn’t talk to who? What does the gossip say? Notice who gets their way and who doesn’t. Talk in a way that ensures that you avoid being seen to take sides.

You should treat your stakeholders equally, do a good job for everyone and listen and respond to what they need. When you are chatting with someone and they are playing the political game, listen and talk to them about what they can do, how they feel, or what they want to do about it rather than agreeing or taking sides.

Office politics can sometimes create stressful situations and tension but it is important to keep your cool at all times. If you've been maligned, candidly address the issue at the source. Then shake hands and move on. Nothing that happens at the office is worth a heart attack. In the grand scheme of things, will the issue matter in a week or a month’s time? If you keep things in perspective, you will be less prone to turning incidents into catastrophes.

If you are building a team it’s worth screening potential new hires carefully. Ask candidates how they feel about workplace politics and how they might react in difficult situations.

Finally, bear in mind that regardless of the type of business that you work in, you will not like everyone and not everyone will like you. Always be professional and make sure you communicate clearly and consistently with them. Be direct and do what you said you would do.

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4 Strategies to Embrace Diversity in Your Business Place!

Diversity is an economic and legal priority in business. It increases the bottom line, encourages innovation and steers businesses away from legal issues. Business owners, managers and employees need to find ways to embrace and respect diversity. Diversity, in business, makes it more sustainable & successful.

Take a moment to write down what your biases are and how you can avoid these affecting the way you conduct yourself when you are at work. Here are 4 strategies to start with:

1. Language

Avoid language that demeans a particular group of individuals. Avoid being patronising and jokes that have religious or cultural inferences.

2. Invite input from people with different backgrounds

Not only does this show respect, it makes good business sense to have a diverse opinion.  Inviting people from many backgrounds and cultures will increase the pace and creativity involved with innovation.

3. Respect religious holidays

Most businesses respect Christian holidays. However, all important religious holidays should be respected for employees of that particular religion.

4. Recruitment

When hiring or promoting individuals do so on the basis of facts only. Skills, abilities, knowledge and results should be the only factors involved in your decisions.

Though there are a lot more, these help you start with implementing diversity at your work place. Embrace diversity in your firm and you are on the way to a more fulfilling and productive business.

The world is a mosaic of cultural differences and the workplace should be as well. Respecting your colleagues and employees is paramount to tapping the valuable diversity in your business.

What are your thoughts?

Contact us for further advice to have a diverse company culture!
☎ 020 89310165 | 📱 07900537459 | ✉ info@apjaccountancy.com