Innovation in business

Innovation in business

Read a blog post about being innovative in business to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

What does it mean to be innovative in business?

In order for a business to survive in today's world, it is important that we regularly review what we are doing and how we are doing it. By considering new ideas and new ways of doing things, and trying to innovate, we can improve on our products/services, increase sales, reduce costs and make our processes more effective and efficient. Innovation is key to increasing profits.

There are several ways a company can be innovative with their products and services. Today we will look at four of them.

1. Using the latest technology to improve your product/service

When we think of innovation, we often think of new technologies. While they might be impressive, we should not use new technologies just because they are available. It is important to consider how the technology can improve our product/service and make a difference to our customer. Companies that produce cars, toiletries, household appliances, etc. often have a large R&D department to work on making their products better.

2. Responding to customer demands by changing what is on offer

By listening to customer feedback, we can get their opinions on how we are doing and find out about what it is that they want. We also need to be aware of changes in customer demands and keep up with the times. When fast-food restaurant McDonald's realised that the market wanted healthier choices, they introduced fruit and salads, while removing the 'super-size' option from their menus.

3. Offering a new product/service to reach new customers

Your business might be doing well, but there is no growth or development and there is a risk that your competitors might take away some of your customers. Innovation sometimes means developing a new product that targets a different market. Although video games were often played by boys, in 2006, video games giant Nintendo introduced the game console Nintendo Wii, successfully targeting girls and older customers with games like Cooking Mama and Brain Training.  

4. Changing the way you provide a service

By looking at the changes to the customer's lifestyle and needs, we sometimes realise that there might be better ways to serve them. Customers who do not have a lot of time might prefer to have their food or their shopping delivered to their homes, or they might like to do their banking online rather than in an actual bank.

Not all innovation will bring success to our businesses, but it can give us the opportunity to grow and learn more about what we do and what our customers might want.

Discussion

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Submitted by Nandar Su Hlaing on Fri, 19/08/2022 - 09:32

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As a latest innovation products/services that I used, like laptop or mobile phone, shopping applications those are useful, saving times, efficient, can make me comfortable using these things. I can connect the people who are living around the world. My family members are living different places, using these things we can connect easily. We aren't feeling that we are living away.

Submitted by Amoon_96 on Wed, 03/08/2022 - 13:52

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I think we need these tips to improve ourselves as well, It is so useful if you want to search for a job and you want to service to pay for you, you need to learn how to market your services.

Submitted by jyoti Chaudhary on Mon, 30/05/2022 - 12:58

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What are some of the latest innovations in the products/services that you use?

I always see my customer need. it is very important to check your customer's needs for what they want and according to the customer's needs, you can do it. The second thing is the budget. many times our customers do not take our product because of high rate. always understand your customer budget.

Submitted by Laxsus on Sun, 13/03/2022 - 18:18

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Paying my bills online is really useful to me

Submitted by LamVanPhuong on Mon, 08/11/2021 - 10:18

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actually i don't usually keep up with the innovation in the world because my economy doesn't allow it

Submitted by Suraj paliwal on Sun, 17/10/2021 - 18:01

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Many new innovations are come up. As I payment money online,
Cryptocurrency, and online classes are most recent innovation.

Submitted by Dariusz on Sun, 29/08/2021 - 19:20

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The latest innovation in the product/service I have used is a payment by phone. It's very convinient and efficient way to pay for goods at the shop or while an online shopping.
Profile picture for user iEdd

Submitted by iEdd on Wed, 21/07/2021 - 16:42

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The latest innovation product I've used recently is the internet bank services. They are so fast and I saved a lot of time doing them. Another good new service is online classes due the Covid-19 pandemic. At the beginning I was rejected but now it is a good chance to learn and keep my studies up.

Submitted by GiulianaAndy on Sat, 03/07/2021 - 01:29

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I noticed that the latest innovations in the products that I use are: 1) I am used to buying upcycling products, this means that hey are products which are made by parts of others old products (obviously these old parts have already fixed by people) 2) Another innovation that I have noticed in a service that I'm used to using is "environment blog" this is a block which contains information about how to be awareness of the environment situation, and it sells products related to the care of the environment such as upcycling products, etc.

Submitted by ahmad 920 on Tue, 09/03/2021 - 12:59

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One of these innovation products/services that I use is 'LeanEnglish' at British council web site They provide us an easy ways to learn and improve our English. We can learn whenever we want and they give us a lot of resources to improve our skills.