4 Key Innovation Activities

Innovation occurs at the intersection of previously unconnected and unrelated planes of thought.

-Idris Mootee

Does your business regularly, or maybe just occasionally, try innovation exercises? Can you name a couple of the activities you may have performed in these exercises?

If we boil it all down, innovation is about four key capabilities or activities:

Spotting opportunities and trends in the marketplace before others do

Understanding customer needs before they are aware of them

Generating interesting ideas that set the company apart from its competition

Successfully commercializing and launching the new product or service

Yes, there is more to innovation than these four points, but you get the drift.

Whether your firm uses “open innovation” to get the ideas from external parties, or practices business model innovation to transform not just products but your business model; you still ultimately end up with the same basic activities.