What makes a company innovative?

When we look at what makes a company ‘innovative’, we must first take a step back and define what ‘innovation’ means, since there are so many different ways people use the term. My favorite definition is “the introduction of something new” - it’s simple enough for people to understand and covers every kind of innovation. So, with that background, an innovative company is simply one that keeps introducing new things – such as changes to internal processes, minor improvements to existing products, or perhaps even entirely new products and services. Thus, a truly innovative company is one that’s never satisfied with the status quo and that keeps working hard to improve every facet of the organization.
If you have the luxury of having a fresh start, your organization will naturally evolve and change quickly, so all you need to do is to sustain that effort and cultivate a culture that’s always trying to be a little better and offer a little more value to your customers. However, if you’re an in-cumbent that’s a bit set in their ways, transforming the organization to-wards an agile, innovative organization is much more difficult. It will take years, tons of hard work, and countless changes to culture, people, and processes within the organization, and clear top-management sup-port to enable all of that […]