KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 — Many entrepreneurs fail to leverage innovative ideas in their business. They want to grow their business and offer products with a competitive edge but neglect techniques and systems that generate a flood of valuable ideas. 

Hence, their survival becomes threatened amid innovative companies that put in a real effort to grow their businesses through innovative products and services. As a country aspiring to establish an innovation economy, Malaysian companies should avoid falling prey to one of these common mistakes.

1.            Believing innovation is too costly: Innovation does not need to be a complicated, time-consuming, earth shattering, ground breaking activity. Although learning a system for identifying and developing innovative ideas does take a bit of time, it can create huge returns in the form of new products or features. It also can improve the chances of business survival in the long run. Once a company understands the process for creating a return on investment, generating creative ideas becomes a daily habit in the business.

2.            Asking employees to generate ideas without creating mechanisms to do something with them: If a company does indeed have mechanisms to take idea fragments, process them, and turn them into fully fleshed out innovations, by all means the company should open up the idea tap. Otherwise, all that the company creates is a long list of ideas that never go anywhere, and substantial organisational pessimism. This doesn’t necessarily mean setting up a department, but at the very least developing a set of criteria by which to judge ideas and have suggestions for how the best ideas can be acted on.

3.            Thinking that innovation is not relevant to their industry: Many people have the mistaken perception that innovation is just for technology-based companies. This is just not the case. Businesses in any industry can apply innovative ideas to grow their revenue and develop a strong position in their respective markets. Recent business articles discuss innovation plans for companies in the food, banking, and clothing industries. Companies can use this common pitfall to their advantage. Companies can create their own innovation systems to jump ahead of their competitors.

4.            Pleading for breakthrough impact without allocating A-team resources: Innovation is hard work. The vast majority of startup companies fail, and that’s with tireless dedication from a team that has nothing to lose. If a company does not dedicate the right resources to its best ideas, the company is consigning them to failure.

5.            Demanding disruptive ideas, without ring-fencing resources for them: An innovator’s dilemma is that companies privilege investments to sustain today’s business over those that have the potential to create tomorrow’s business. After all, a ringgit invested in the existing business produces a measurable, near-term return, whereas a ringgit invested in a non-existent business promises infirm returns at an unpredictable future date. However, over the long-run that disruptive investment might be a better proposition, but if the company hasn’t set aside resources specifically to drive disruption, the short-term will always win.

6.            Failing to involve the entire team: Every person in a company has unique experiences and perspectives on different aspects of the business. However, many business leaders limit the company’s innovation activities to a few people, such as product developers or founders. Although these people are important, this approach may fail to identify valuable ideas. People outside the product development area have an advantage when developing ideas, because they are not limited by how things have always been done. Instead, they freely approach problems from different perspectives and do not limit their thinking to existing company products or systems.

7.            No system for identifying innovative ideas: Successful businesses have a system for capturing and identifying creative ideas. Since many innovations solve problems or fill market gaps, the innovation process starts by finding opportunities to develop creative solutions. Many new ideas are incremental changes, not revolutionary new products. A company must identify problems, unmet needs and market gaps, then let its team create ideas that address those issues. The company should schedule these activities to maintain the continual creation of new ideas.

8.            Not evaluating ideas thoroughly before making decisions: Identifying new ideas is an important activity. But, evaluation of those ideas and taking action to implement the best ones that allow business to grow is even more important. When evaluating ideas, obtaining input from people in different parts of the business should not be dismissed. An “innovation evaluation team” that includes input from sales, marketing, customer service, product development and manufacturing personnel would strike a good balance. Each person has different expertise and offers a different business viewpoint. This diversity helps identify the most valuable ideas to pursue.

9.            Pushing for answers without defining problems worth solving: We define innovation as something different that creates value. You only create value if you solve a problem that matters. Most solutions created by many research organisations across the world are not aligned with industry needs. This is what we often call “solutions in search of problems” or “pushing for answers without defining problems worth solving.” Companies also often make the same mistake. 

10.          Failing to celebrate innovation: Innovation does not have to be boring. Creativity can be fun, and the more a company celebrates creativity the more innovative the company will become. It is important to reward creative thinking and celebrate those who submit great ideas that help the business grow. Scheduling innovation challenges and contests, brainstorming sessions and other activities that encourage innovative thinking throughout the company and spur glimpses of ideas worth nurturing into innovative products and services.

Your feedback is welcome at info@platcomventures.com

* Dr Viraj Perera is the CEO of PlaTCOM Ventures Sdn Bhd, the national technology commercialisation platform of Malaysia which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) formed in collaboration with SME Corp Malaysia.