VALUE CREATION, INNOVATION AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
About a week ago, I got a call from a business partner requesting that I deliver a presentation on value creation and innovation. The presentation was to be for a new cohort of product developers and middle-level executives in the financial industry. The first question she asked was “Apart from sales, what else can you speak on?” What this meant was that “though I know that you are a sales expert, can you teach value creation and innovation?”.
Interestingly, I told her that as a business management consultant, a learning and development expert, a teacher, a trainer, and an entrepreneur, I am constantly delivering value and innovating. These innovations are evident in the ways we deliver, engage and support people, institutions, and organisations on how to improve their processes and empower their teams to make more informed decisions that help improve their bottom line.
So, the question is who is qualified to speak or teach on value creation and innovation? Everyone and anyone that understands the evolution of value, creativity and innovation should be able to at least share their thoughts on value creation, innovation, and creativity. The basis starts with having an idea. We have never been short of ideas; however, our ideas become valuable when they are useful, relatable, and relevant to a need or capable of solving a problem.
Value is useful, important and what we hold dear. Our values are, mostly driven by our beliefs and aspirations. In today’s marketplace businesses that provide value get rewarded by patronage which leads to a positive impact on their bottom line. Innovation is bringing out something new from an existing or similar process or state into a new being and this is fueled by the creative ability of the inventor or innovator.
Creativity is the ability to bring out or deliver a new thing in a new way. Creative innovation and value creation are functions of bringing originality into an existing process, situation, offering or solution. It requires ingenuity and the ability to mutate thoughts into ideas and ideas into reality.
Product development occurs when these ideas are transformed by innovation into tangible and intangible entities. Product development becomes evident when we transform ideas into reality. Values are driven by our beliefs, aspirations, and desire to achieve and attain a state of completeness and a drive for improvement and excellence. The strength of your values is a function of your ability to be ingenious.
Value creation and innovation that leads to product development occur in three phases and follow five processes before they can be commercialized. The phases are idea creation, invention, and innovation. These three phases interact and operate in a symmetric way that gives them the ability to loop back and create something valuable. Value creation starts from ideation and progresses towards prototyping the ideas, testing the ideas, iterating, adjusting and finally commercialization.
Value is not created in a vacuum. Value creation is a product of our thoughts, beliefs and aspiration and it is related to what we desire to bring out or create. Whether you are creating a product, service, solution, process, or procedure, understand that the main essence of value creation and innovation is to help simplify use and command an army of adopters. Anything short of that is value erosion. Are you creating value and eroding value?
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