Innovation Management: Barriers to Innovation (Part Five)

So far in this innovation management series, we’ve covered the four main types of innovation which are sustaining innovation, breakthrough/radical innovation, disruptive innovation, and basic research.

Now that we know what they are and why they’re relevant to market research, we’re going to discuss how to create a successful environment for innovation, starting with discussing the main barriers to innovation.

 

The five main barriers to innovation

Below, learn about the primary obstacles to innovation.

 

1. Fear of cannibalising current business prevents investment in new areas

One of the barriers to innovation is fear of cannibalisation. Companies often create strategies to prevent users from pulling away from one of their products to another. For example, if a market research firm has a key product or service, sometimes creating a new product could divert attention away from that new product if it’s cheaper or more efficient for clients. However, we must remember that clients may eventually move to cheaper or more efficient products and services elsewhere if you don’t innovate. In a nutshell, your competition will kill your product and service if you don’t.

The best companies aren’t afraid to replace their most profitable products and embrace self-cannibalization. This is how tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have continued to grow impressively over the years.

 

2. Poor structure or unclear process

Many organisations don’t have a structure or processes in place for innovation. Employees are often unsure of how to take ideas forward and what are the next steps to turn these ideas into a product or service. There’s a range of different processes and frameworks that can help you in your innovation process. One of the most popular frameworks is design thinking, to learn more about design thinking visit our expert channel here.

 

3. Not enough time to innovate

Market researchers have a consistent chain of deliverables to produce and deadlines to meet. Things can get stressful when market researchers must combine both their daily assignments with other innovation duties. Businesses need to help their employees. Instead of telling people to find time, businesses should supply time for them to work on what could be a game-changing idea.

Time can also be managed by having productive meetings or developing a topic to focus on which will allow market researchers to hone their attention. Regardless, innovation requires investing time, and companies should create time for the innovation process.

 

4. No rewards or incentives for innovative behaviours

Some employees are magically able to generate ideas, research, and experiment in their spare time, in between their other responsibilities. These are people with innovative behaviours who are willing to constantly challenge the status quo. Innovative leaders are described as fearless and doing what’s right versus what may be politically correct. Some highly effective leaders of innovation were characterised as being “inverse to the environment”.

Companies need to identify these people and reward them. Rewards can come in the form of responsibility. For example, if a person has an innovative idea, they are given the freedom to take the idea forward, without feeling the risk of their professional careers or time off to further pursue other innovative projects.

 

 

 

5. Not embracing failure

Fear of failure is one of the biggest reasons why people and organisations don’t develop new ideas. Many things can go wrong when something new is introduced. There are no guarantees that a new idea will work, and sometimes market researchers can feel like they are risking themselves by going after something new.

Failure is an important part of learning, development, and progress that an organisation must embrace to move forward.

 

Next month…

Next month we will talk about team diversity for innovation.