How organisations use innovation to create sustained success?

Singh, Amargit (2012). Innovation for Sustained Success. Accountant Today, Nov/Dec 2012. pp 58-62
- available at www.mia.org.my/at/at/2012/12/09.pdf

In today’s constantly changing and turbulent business environment, the two concepts of innovation” and “sustainability” has become increasingly important buzzwords. If an organisation wants to remain successful and survive for a longer period, it can no longer rely solely on performing better against its current competitors. Instead, it needs to out-manoeuvre them by addressing the ever-changing needs and expectations of stakeholders (including customers) through innovation.

In order to survive in this competitive business environment, organisations can use innovation as a tool to drive “sustained business success”. If an organisation can effectively link innovation” to its “sustained success”, it can improve its business performance. This can result in enhancing its customer satisfaction, which in turn, will lead to increase in its market share, profit and maximization of its shareholders value.

Creating economic value through innovation and customer satisfaction

Innovation plays a critical role in maintaining the competitiveness of an organisation. Innovation can be said to be a process, where ideas are developed or created that can result in new or improved products, processes, services, technology or business models which can increase an organisation’s profit, shareholder value and economic value.

There is not a “one-size-fits-all” innovation strategy that an organisation can use to outperform its competitors. It needs to be tailor-made and aligned with the organisation’s business strategy.

The focus of an innovation strategy needs to fulfill its customer needs, which can lead to customer satisfaction and increase in its profit. The monetary value of an innovation must literally come from the “pockets” of its customers. Without focusing on its customers’ needs and requirements, an organisation will not be able to extract maximum value from its innovation. Thus, when developing innovation strategy, an organisation must focus on customers’ needs and customer satisfaction, which is perquisite in achieving business excellence and maximizing economic value.

Thus, the key in the innovation process is to capture the voice of customers and ensure customer satisfaction. This can be achieved by using the quality management system approach

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