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 Wakana M on Mon, 06/07/2020 - 06:08

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Some of the latest innovations that I use are laptop and smartphone. I guess. My laptop and smartphone are Apple’s products. The laptop is changed keyboard, display, performance, speaker and camera etc... and also the iPhone is changed camera battery and etc.…I think Apple is innovated their products every year. and also, they produce new products every year. I’m impressed about it. it is difficult to produce them, but they always change things little by little. I would like to expect new products from Apple in the future.

Submitted by Sharif Tayyebi on Fri, 03/07/2020 - 11:14

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There are some important innovations but I don't use now. I prefer to talk about smartphone and its apps that I use every day. Internet, social media, different kinds of smartphones, networking sites and so on are just part of a very important and impressive things in our every day life. I make phone calls by watsup, imo, telegram and messanger or I read news on Facebook and Twitter every day. Nowadys, I mostly don't need to watch TV or listen to radio programs for news. I just connect to Internet and check the sites which I want. Moreover, laptop or computer is another latest innovation that I and my generation use it in our life. For example, I don't often need to go to library to gain access to books or essays. My laptop is a big library which has many different and easily available books and essays into. Therefore, I just turn it on and study the one I want. Regards, Tayyebi

Submitted by syah on Thu, 28/05/2020 - 07:55

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The latest innovation product that I use are gadgets. We can easily make video call with our families, friends, or siblings by our gadgets. Specially when this pandemic occur, we must stay at home. We can't go out except for important things. But, we can stay communicate with others by our gadgets. Also the internet is very useful. It connects a lot of information from every sides of the world. I hope the technology will improve continously to make our life better.

Submitted by Muhammad Bagir on Wed, 20/05/2020 - 05:25

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It might be the way we purchase something. If in the old day, we have to come to the place which we want to buy somethong, now we just grab our phone, open the online shopping application and scrolling on the search section on the menu. I think this is very helpful for the person who far from the city-center in getting stuff that they couldn't get in their place.
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Submitted by JuanManuelLopezGil on Tue, 21/04/2020 - 00:55

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The latest innovation favourite for me is the electric scooter skate because is economic, ecological and portable.

Submitted by conejo on Mon, 20/04/2020 - 02:54

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The last innovation services I used, because of quarentine, was Homeoffice. It demands a lot of skills about rutines and effective time management. Although I must use many different tools for virtual work.
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Submitted by OlaIELTS on Sat, 18/04/2020 - 11:34

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Some of the latest innovation in the products and services that I use includes invention of latest technology, offering of new product, sophisticated way of rendering services, ways of attending to customers and so on.

Submitted by fathibba34 on Sun, 12/04/2020 - 08:19

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the latest innovations in products and services that i use, are the new technologies that we use or try them every moment in our life, splendid smart phones and new screens and the different programs in direct relation to this innovations.