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.

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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.

Submitted by Víctor De Anda on Mon, 01/03/2021 - 20:53

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The latest innovation that I used were the apps in the cloud. They are very simple and practical. You can find for example; your personal documents in the app in your phone and download very fast. It´s marvelous.

Submitted by AulianFr on Mon, 01/03/2021 - 16:47

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I just got my Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. This vaccine is a true miracle and all of the research scientists have done this past decade boil down to this incredible product. The technology behind this vaccine is very innovative (even though it's already found long ago, but hasn't been implemented into any commercial products). Besides the technology, the process of making this new vaccine was quite fast and it's fascinating to me to know that pre-clinical and clinical trials of one drug could be shortened and still end up as a high-quality product.

Submitted by Abrarhussain on Fri, 19/02/2021 - 08:31

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Some of the latest Innovations in the products/services that I use, includes applications on mobile phone, one new idea that brings new ways of sending a message such as using voice recognition to type messages instead of the usual way of typing. Through this way of latest technology I can improve and innovate my business products.

Submitted by German on Thu, 18/02/2021 - 02:36

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The latest innovation that I used was a services in a movil app that allow read the amount to the money that I have in the transport card

Submitted by Dmytro on Wed, 03/02/2021 - 11:55

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These days, lots of new technologies boil down to smartphones. This device is not just popular or demanded. It's irreplaceable. Some years ago we couldn't even imagine that alongside taking calls and having chats we would be able to order food, order goods from an online store, take orders from a customer, buy tickets, and so on by using a smartphone. Probably depending on the certain country, a human may not carry an ID card, driver's license, wallet or purse, etc. All the documents may be on the smartphone. Besides, the contactless payment method becomes more and more popular.

Submitted by Asni on Fri, 29/01/2021 - 00:11

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They are mainly innovations in technology, both in hardware and software. Smartphones are constantly developing with powerful resources and fascinating features, not to mention software apps which make life easier, help you be organize your life, optimize your time usage and be more productive. I'm also using a camera which I find greatly useful, it allows me to keep an eye on my baby while I'm doing something else. It has a sensor that detects when the baby is no longer lying on his bed and produces a sound to warn you about that.