Innovative companies manage to better position themselves in the market and thus guarantee greater business growth. Learn about the differences between invention and innovation in this article for your leadership.
Before clarifying the difference between Invention and innovation, we would like to refer to some inventions that have been achieved thanks to the persistence of innovation by their creators.
The sewing machine was patented in 1846 by Elias Howe who, being married to a seamstress, longed to create a machine that would sew. His persistence in this thought led him to dream of an attack by the Indians who had spears whose tips were hollow and thus deduce that the key was that the needle should not be threaded through the upper part (head) but through the lower part (point), inventing the basic sewing machine. However, it was Isaac Singer who innovated in the way of offering it to the market and swept sales.
The Walkman portable audio cassette player was born out of the discontent of a sony employee who wanted to listen to music without having to carry a heavy player and without making noise to others at work. Basically Akio Morita, founder of Sony, upon hearing this disagreement and observing the failure of the possible improvements of the interview recorder that they manufactured, when trying to convert it from monaural to stereo for reasons of the resulting size, decided to modify the interview recorder, taking out the pieces to record and the speaker, leaving the pieces to reproduce with a better stereo amplifier and adding headphones. This innovation, the product of a first failure, set the tone for Sony's global positioning by managing to sell millions of units. Then,Apple did the same with devices that did not require a magnetic tape, innovating when creating the iPod, which also did the same for this company and left behind Sony that should have done it first!
Another invention by chance was the Microwave Oven. One day in 1946, Dr. Percy Spencer, an engineer at the Raytheon Manufacturing Company, who was primarily engaged in military equipment, was testing a magnetron tube (high-frequency wave generator) when he reached into his pocket where he kept a chocolate and found that it had melted. This caused him great curiosity knowing that microwaves generate heat, he looked for a bag of corn kernels, put them near the tube, and within minutes he got popcorn (popcorn) in the laboratory. Then he tried a container with a hole, placing an egg, and understanding that the egg had been cooked from the inside out, the first prototype of the domestic microwave oven was born.Today there is almost in every home one of these gadgets improved by the innovators.
To invent is to create something that does not exist. This is not necessarily a market demand. Whoever invents something is often not the one who turns it into a mass consumer product. Innovating is taking inventions and adapting them to market needs or generating new needs.
The invention, which sometimes arises from unexpected situations, is only successful when an innovator analyzes them and visualizes their applicability in the market, creating the marketing and sales strategies to position it, generating new needs and desires for said products or services.
Nowadays, due to the fact that the manufacture of products has more or less equivalent standards, many times the competitiveness of companies is reduced to reducing costs in order to have adequate prices for the market. The differentiating elements of the product do not make it sell to a greater or lesser extent, causing meaningless price wars. This is different only for those who are capable of generating new highly innovative products, and to a greater extent for those capable of using these products to generate real solutions through their services.
Customers are looking for solutions to their needs and desires every day, beyond the particular products that are used to achieve them. The client will hire the one who implements the solution and adds value in an innovative way, and not the one who only sells the product.
To have leadership in business, it is necessary to have market differentiating elements, which are perceived by customers as very valuable compared to the competition. These differentiating elements must be led by Innovation.
The personality of companies is the personality of those who run them. If the leaders of a company are conservative then the company will be conservative. For a company to be innovative, its leaders must have a profile of innovators.Innovators question and challenge the “status quo”, they investigate new ways of doing things, they are self-motivated and proactive to achieve their goals, they leave their comfort state to push towards the leadership of the future, they take risks, they have the They "batteries up" and they are "warriors", they interact, they are not afraid of ridicule, they dream and apply, they generate ideas without restrictions and refine them, they analyze the market failures that represent business opportunities that could be covered, they concentrate on the Challenges and problems to find solutions, they are insightful, they are not ambiguous, they face fears, they apply continuous learning, they intuit but they analyze, they have effective communication, if they fail they try again, they work as a team even if they are individualistic.
Many companies emerge at the most difficult economic times in the market thanks to their innovative spirit and their ability to risk. Others that are market leaders end up falling behind in the future because they do not innovate. Someone who is successful today will not necessarily be so in the future. Leaders must take more care since those who are not leaders are always looking for a way to lower the leaders of their rung to position themselves there.
To lead the present and the future, it is necessary to innovate and for this the Internet is a means by which there are many open spaces for companies to position themselves in the market, giving added value to their current and potential customers. Today Internet business solutions are provided that will allow your company to innovate in customer service, marketing, marketing, technical support, automation of your sales force and much more. Don't let your business get left behind, consult the experts in Internet Business Solutions to guide you in the right strategies for your organization.
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