Most entrepreneurs are innovative and we are always on the lookout for fresh opportunities and ideas. During tough times, innovation is great for business owners to figure out marketing strategies that are effective as well as cost-efficient.
Companies like Smart and Apple depend on innovative ideas to keep the buzz alive. Innovation, whether implemented on the functionality or the design of products is definitely capable of bringing success for an entity.
Putting positive effects of innovation aside, we are going to look at 7 Reasons Why Innovation Sucks. Wait, I’m not saying that Peter Drucker was wrong by saying innovation brings success. My aim is to highlight the importance of setting up precautionary measures when deciding the role that innovation will play in your business.
Innovation Involves Prediction and Risks
Entrepreneurs innovate with the aim of changing the world, bringing their dreams to life, going against the status quo or simply just to improve other people’s life. Often times, the innovation process involves studying trends, conducting market research, lots of beta testing but all these do not guarantee success.
You might have all potential risks taken into account but because strategic planning contains predictions and assumptions to quantify the level of risk instead of presenting multiple uncertainties, you are unable to be totally sure that the market will act as what you have predicted.
When you commit yourself to YOUR plan based on YOUR assumptions, you are either in for a major success or a major failure. (Read: The Strategy Paradox by Michael E. Raynor).
Innovation Causes Distraction
For the past few years, we have seen a trend of small businesses growing vertically instead of getting into every market that they came across. You should focus on becoming the maverick of your niche not the Jack of All Trades, Master of None.
Entrepreneurs’ innovation go out of bounds at times with their outrageous ideas may not relate to their current venture. Big corporations like Yahoo made the mistake of spreading itself too thin by offering services with high overheads that do not complement its core business. More about this at What Yahoo Must Do to Survive by Jawad Shuaib.
Innovation Comes with Huge Expenses
Research and development, which is the main activity department to turn ideas into reality, will not bear fruit right away. If you are accountable to other shareholders, you might be questioned on the viability of your choice to spend on R&D, especially when you are not posting positive operating profits.
During a tough time like this, it is worthwhile for you to consider the cost that a new innovation might consume and the relativity of it to your core. A totally new product will lead to a longer list of research expenses as compared to improving or enhancing current products that you have.
Innovation Restarts Learning Curve
Productivity accelerates when a process is being done repeatedly. One slight adjustment to either your manufacturing process, customer support procedures or operational flow, hiccups will happen.
This might be worse when you introduce a new service, product or operating department into your business. You and your employees will need time to get used to the new process and not to mention about costs that will arise due to errors.
Innovating Involves Persuasion and Negotiation
As mentioned earlier, innovation requires a lot of money and effort. Fellow entrepreneurs, bear in mind that not everyone is adventurous when it comes to business.
Your current employees may disagree with you on trying to innovate because you are putting their jobs at stake. Retailers and distributors might not want to waste their time and space by experimenting the viability of your new innovation.
When you deviate from your core operations, certain lenders will impose injunctions as they do not want to bear the risk of you failing a new project. All in all, you need to sell your ideas hard to these people, which is not something easy.
Patent Your Ideas! What? I Infringed Someone Else’s?
For entrepreneurs that are also inventors, I am sure that you are more well versed in the law of patents than I am. Hiring a lawyer, getting a professional sketch of your prototype done and the patenting process take a long time and will cost a lot of money.
Entrepreneurs also risks infringing patents of other companies or individuals and mind you, large corporations will not mind to file a lawsuit on patent infringement even if it is a David vs Goliath scenario.
Google Patent Search is actually a good tool for entrepreneurial inventors in researching what are the prototypes or ideas that are already “owned” by others.
Urge for Ideas Causes Procrastination
When an idea drops by, entrepreneurs will get excited, the next thing that they are likely to do is to spend hours on Google to find out the potentials of their idea. Then, they will list down a long list of questions to be asked. Most of the time, everything will be put to an end after the short excitement.
Let’s be honest. How many ideas that you had in the past 30 days and how many of them that you are actually still following up with?
Also, if you do not have an ideas dump like a folder for all the ideas that pop up once is a while, you will find yourself wasting a lot of hours pondering about an idea, which is procrastination.
Innovation – To Adopt or To Avoid?
Again, I would like to reestablish my stand. No business can remain as a stronghold in the market if business owners are not willing to innovate and constantly on the lookout for the implementation of new ideas.
However, adoption of new ideas and new ways of doing things must be properly evaluated. Innovation is a must but implementation during the right time and having an adequate amount of resources, including funds, talents and management skills are equally important.
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