Trends in Business Innovation

Business innovation is important to all businesses for several reasons. It is vital for a business’ survival and success that it generates new ideas that are relevant to the ever-changing circumstances. Each business is expected to have priorities and goal specific strategies unique to its vision and purpose. However, businesses that do not innovate run the risk of losing a number of things. Such a business may lose its ability to operate efficiently since it is no longer relevant to the changing times. It may lose key staff as well as ground to its competitors.

Successful businesses respond first to their organizational as well as consumer needs then later anticipate any future trends. Anticipation of such trends is not enough; such businesses often work at developing a product or service that equips them to meet this future demand. As technologies and markets keep shifting and improving, innovation helps keen business owners stay a step ahead of their competitors.

Businesses that are constantly innovating and improving their practices are able to attract better employees as well as maintain their own staff. The staff is the backbone of any business and thus is crucial to the health and performance of the business on a long-term basis.

Below is a list of six of the top trends in business innovation in the world today.

Rapid Technological Innovation

Digital revolution has experienced quite a number of changes across the past three decades. We have witnessed the digitalization of almost everything, up to and including social interaction and experiences. It has modified our entire definitions of work and play to a point where they are almost indistinguishable. Yet, even with all this growth in the field of technology, our world is still not as digitized as we would want it to be. Businesses are seeking more cost-effective technology to be able to cope with the increasing challenges. Consumers on the other hand are demanding for devices that are more powerful and more applications that are efficient. An explosive growth in the field of data entry and analysis is imminent given the incessant need to satisfy these demands. Industries will be disrupted and previously ‘unrelated’ industries will find common ground through the technological innovations.

Emerging markets Increase their Global Power

In a statement given by the IMF, emerging markets are expected to overtake developed economies by 2014 in terms of share of the global GDP. These markets serve as the growth engine of the world’s current economy. The effects of their magnificent rise reach far beyond the expected limits and continue to play out. Nevertheless, the risks of this rise are often understated and downplayed. Previously they were valued only as sources of cheap labour or low cost manufacturing but now they are seen, in their own right, as promising markets. With this rise, many companies that were previously harmless to multinational corporations now pose a huge threat. Forecast suggests that investors will continue to invest in these emerging markets for some time in the near future. By 2020, emerging market leaders will have become a disruptive force in the global competitive landscape.

Enhancement of ties between governments and the private sector

Governments of developing countries have three basic priorities with regard to the need bounce back from the global recession:

• To deliver services to their people more effectively, efficiently and economically
• To strengthen their country’s finances
• To ensure the sustainable economic growth of the private sector in a bid to provide employment.

The governments will need to strike a balance between the pursuit of their own interests and global cooperation.

Global workforce transformed by demographic shifts

The world’s population is growing at a rapid pace yet, somehow, the availability of skilled employees is reducing rapidly as well. The working age is projected to decline further despite the projected growth in global population from 6.9 billion in 2010 to 7.6 billion in 2020. A third of India’s population is currently under the age of 15. Countries with a young labour force may benefit from this demographic dividend only if they provide their youth with educational and economic opportunities to develop their skills.

There also seems to be a growing mismatch between the skills that many employers are searching for and the talents of the employees seeking those jobs. This is present ironically, in the backdrop of increased numbers of college-educated employees and the rise in unemployment within some of the best-educated markets.

Assets: Access over Ownership

With the increase in economic uncertainty, many people will opt not to make fixed commitments to assets. This will be fueled by the reality that we need not possess an asset to have it satisfy our needs. People are no different. Many organizations and companies have opted to hire people on part-time basis or use freelancers to get their work done. The prevailing fact is that with these uncertain times, and the expected worsening of them, one can preserve his or her flexibility by not being tied down through ownership of an asset. This will not wind up in favor of businesses that sell their goods and services, as opposed to those that lease or rent their goods or services, which will flourish in this background.

A cultivated culture of innovation

Organizations have come to realize that their previously held values and principles did not promote a culture of innovation within themselves. As many of them struggle to create a culture that enhances innovation among the employees and employers, these values and principles will most definitely be re-assessed and re-defined to correctly reflect this new culture. They will alter the entire dynamics of their operations to foster the growth of this culture. This may be through changes n hiring techniques to consider those that meet their values and principles as well as those cultured to be innovative by themselves.