We all talk about innovation; every company wants to be innovative. But, do we actually know how to? Time has changed, so did the definition of innovation. Any company must adopt new ways to be innovative to survive in today’s competition. Here’s my view abut the ultimate guide for becoming an innovative company.

Co-creation

It’s one of the most used words lately. Well, you must be wondering, that is this “Co-creation”. Let’s start with a formal definition, “Co-creation is a form of marketing strategy or business strategy that emphasizes the generation and ongoing realization of mutual firm-customer value.” The words to focus on here is “mutual Firm-customer value”. In today’s world, companies must break out of the box and work together with the customer or suppliers to generate innovation and provide better solutions to problems.

A good example within the B2B industries would be, Nedschroef, a leading manufacturer of fasteners working with its customers like VW, Audi, BMW, etc to create innovative fastener solutions for future mobility

Crowd Funding

It’s 2013 and we are still experiencing the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The Euro crisis is taking a high toll on countries like the Netherlands, Germany, once known as one of the strongest economies in the world. Getting funding for starting a business is difficult these days. Even when it comes to producing innovative products it requires a good amount of investment before theory turns to reality. Especially for SMEs and individual entrepreneurs, crowdfunding has become the ultimate source for turning a great idea into a reality. Yes, crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.

The Pebble Watch has been the most famous example of crowdfunding. The original team scored more than $20 million with a target of less than $1 million via crowdfunding platform named “Kickstarter”

Collective Knowledge

“Coming together is a beginning, Keeping together is progress, and working together is success” that’s one of my favorite quotes anymore. When it comes to innovation, people from different backgrounds, a different part of the world, even from different work experience can contribute to providing innovative solutions to any problem. Thanks to the rapid growth of the internet, people from different parts of the world can share their knowledge and create innovative solutions and products.

Recently, Facebook friends helped a scientist to identify nearly 5,000 fish specimens collected in Guyana in less than 24 hrs, YES less than 24 hrs. The majority of people commenting held a Ph.D. in ichthyology or a related field and hailed from a great diversity of countries including the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil. By quickly tapping the collective expertise of their social network to help with the preliminary identification process, the expedition members were able to sort, pack, and export the specimens to Washington, D.C promptly.

Collaborative Consumption

Zipcar is a US membership-based carsharing company providing automobile reservations for its members, billable by the hour or day. Members can reserve Zipcars online or by phone at any time, immediately or up to a year in advance. Zipcar members have automated access to Zipcars using an access card which works with the car’s technology to unlock the door, where the keys are already located inside. Zipcar also offers an iPhone or Android application that allows members to honk the horn to locate a Zipcar and unlock the doors.

I was amazed by the overall idea behind such an innovative car rental service when I first came to know about it in the Marketing and Service Management Class during my MBA at Maastricht School of Management. And this is one of the best examples of innovation via collaborative consumption. In more formal terms, collaborative consumption is an economic model based on classical market behaviors of sharing, swapping, bartering, trading or renting access to products as opposed to ownership which both creates and adds value to existing products and services

Creativity

California State University defined Creativity as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.

It’s no doubt creativity paves the way towards ultimate innovation. But, to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. You can be from a different industry yet you can always add value and create innovative products to other industries just be able to see things in new ways. The research named “Innovation through diversity” by Forbes insight has proven that the formula for success is in the diversity of people in the organization. People from different backgrounds when putting together in a perfect environment produce creative and innovative solutions.