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 Miss zahra on Thu, 06/04/2023 - 22:18

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I used to attend in online workshops but since crona virus most of the workshops changed to online and distance type. I think it is very impressive innovation because it cause that people can attend useful classes from every where they want without the fear of distance, illness, traffic and time delay.

Submitted by jmajo on Wed, 08/03/2023 - 13:44

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One of the latest innovations I use is to do remote work or have a home office to do work from home, during the pandemic we started to do it for heathy reasons and we discover that it’s a good alternative for some situations. Another innovation I recently adopted is to buy bus tickets from an app in my smartphone, it allows me to see the differents departings hours and choose whatever could suits me.

Thanks for the lesson.
Great site!

Submitted by AlexandraMT on Sat, 18/02/2023 - 13:27

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I often use Netflix. I used to watch movies in the theater, but now I prefer to share them at home.

Submitted by Ami1122334455 on Sat, 17/12/2022 - 14:25

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In revolution 4.0, there are some changes in the business. Firstly, their staff is trained very carefully before they work. Therefore, the teams understand the products clearly and introduce very detail about the product. Next, the customers are impressive their attitude which is polite and gentle. Secondly, it is convenient to buy something. The companies will deliver their product to the customer's house without money. Moreover, the clients can repay the product if it has problems in 30 days with the company's mistake. Then, the staff will come to the customer's house to repair their products if they have any problems. Finally, the quality of the product will innovate with modern technology. They are more and more useful and reasonable price. For example, in the past, the telephone was an extravagant object which was more than ten million but now it is approximately 3 million. Besides that, the telephone is slimmer, more beautiful, and has various functions in the past.

Submitted by erkhes on Wed, 14/12/2022 - 16:04

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in my opinion we should do these things to improve our business. if we doing everything over the phone has been very beneficial for us

Submitted by nero js on Tue, 06/12/2022 - 07:48

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Nowadays, some companies in the world have innovative ideas in their products and services. One of the most famous of them is Tesla. Inc., that manufactures electric vehicles.

Submitted by Eman Samir on Sun, 27/11/2022 - 10:53

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The latest innovation I use is available on shopping apps under the name of " Discover your size" which asks you to choose your body measurement, then it suggests the suitable size to you.

Submitted by DULGUUN2005 on Sat, 19/11/2022 - 10:47

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Finding good personalized things in my life and feeling good about spending money for product is one of the best feeling. I love new innovation such as product improvements greatly affect our lives. My phone service company gives best deal for unlimited data since I can choose speed and how many hours I need.

Submitted by farhadwahaj on Thu, 08/09/2022 - 06:12

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Early, we used to use the world and excel for dating collection and reporting. However, after 2011 we are using technology such as ODK, CMORE, and FULCRUM for data collection and reporting. in the past, we receive a report after weeks of data collection, while the defects of discrepancies vanish in the field, but using the technology we have got the date of the project on the same day on which field staff does the inspection.

Submitted by ivanricardo07 on Thu, 25/08/2022 - 01:45

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The products/services updated with newest technologies that I have been testing are iPhone 13 Pro max, and the earphones called Beats Fit Pro which was manufactured by Apple´s brand noun Beats. These devices have an outstanding performance, and we can carry out a lot of multimedia tasks quickly on them.