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 Minh on Sat, 16/01/2021 - 05:43

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Nowadays, with all high technology we are offered a number of apps by Giant Productions. Just few days I updated Transit apps into my cell phone. I have been using it from that day to now. How can you imagine that it is very useful for me I can control the time when I get on bus. In my opinion, people should take advantage from some new technology, everybody should try it at least one time, if not you can delete it easy.

Submitted by DIỄM PHÚC on Mon, 07/12/2020 - 01:38

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By considering new ideas and new ways of doing things, and trying to innovate, we can improve on our products/services increase sale, reduce costs and make our processes more effective and efficient Innovation is a key to increasing profits

Submitted by Ehsan on Sun, 06/12/2020 - 10:00

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I use technology in my life. This technology mostly includes smart devices such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops. These devices with the help of the internet make anything much easy for us. For instance, I use Google's calendar service to plan my tasks, various applications, and websites to do my banking work, and so on. Also, new technology like crypto- currency is becoming ubiquitous worldwide and it can make easy means of payment. Generally, innovations make comfortable lives.

Submitted by Dmytro on Tue, 10/11/2020 - 19:53

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The newest technology I use is an app that provides me the opportunity to tap into working system via smartphone while being wherever I am with access to Internet.

Submitted by Fardhan on Fri, 06/11/2020 - 07:59

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In today's era, there are many technologies that are very developed, one of the innovative technologies I use is the telephone, assisted by the internet network, everyone can access and talk by telephone without having to meet face to face.
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Submitted by Aghaton on Fri, 30/10/2020 - 14:37

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I think technology has brought a mega change in innovation. Nowadays, people/businessmen have come up with many astonishing ideas applied through technology.Say computer technology. Take for example the packaging system of these days and the printing technology through computer designing has helped a great deal in promoting the product worldwide.

Submitted by Moon on Thu, 22/10/2020 - 16:06

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I think we should also be innovative not only in business but also in our lifestyles. We always do same things that we used to. But,it might be so boring for us sometimes.
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Submitted by danisep on Thu, 24/09/2020 - 22:06

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I like technology and I can see that the majority of new innovative products are released only first in the United states, I don't like that. the most recent innovative technologie that I’m using is cloud gaming Geforce Now, it's a platform where you can play computers video games without need a gaming computer, you can play even in your smart tv, games that need a expensive computer to run to a 120Ghz even in 4K, you just have to pay the monthly rate and if you can you could buy a controller.