In
today’s times with new ways of working, better manufacturing processes
etc. coming up , the need for business innovation has risen greatly,
with the world becoming a unified marketplace and globalisation,
liberalisation etc. making trade and commerce and basically any and
every kind of exchange of information raw materials, data etc. very
easy, it has become very important for an organisation to keep
reinventing and changing itself to help tackle the increase in
competition. Also, it becomes very important that companies keep trying
to find out better and more advanced ways to cut down costs, get better
profits and at the same time help in deliver better and better value to
the customer.

Business
innovation now a days doesn’t only mean making the product development
better but it also means that the companies should keep in mind in
inventing themselves in ways so that the internal and external customers
goodwill towards the company increases.

Kinds of innovation that a company can make

Basically there are two kinds of levels where the company can make innovations:

� For the internal customer: This includes bringing in more advanced
technology, making the work processes, the way of working for the
company, making innovations in the company which help increase the
internal customer loyalty as well as his interest to work.

� For
the External customer: this includes making better and technologically
advanced products, increasing safety standards for the various products
better, giving the external customer more value for money.

A
company can try and achieve the type of innovation required to beat
competition by using the ‘Innovation Life Cycle’ effectively. This is
basically a step by step way of innovating in your business, it
includes:

�
The first step is where the overall innovation idea is formulated,
thought about in its infant form, in this various basic pros and cons of
the innovation are thought about and then any irregularities are
smoothed out.

� The second step is where the overall advanced
concept is developed, in this the idea is usually tested out or
simulated against real time market conditions and then the final
blueprint of how the idea looks, where should it be implemented etc. is
made.

� The third step simply is checking out the idea against
real market conditions (with the help of test runs), it helps know how
the concept fares against changes in the business environment and helps
understand the market better also.
� Business innovation strategy plans are then prepared out and then the final commercialization is done.

�
It becomes very important that the company keep following up closely
with the plan, in fact innovation consulting says that it is only
through constantly performing these kind of control measures that an
organisation can remove out any chinks or flaws in their plans.