The successful exploitation of new ideas is crucial to a business being able to improve its processes, bring new and

improved products and services to market, increase its efficiency and, most importantly, improve its profitability.

Marketplaces - whether local, regional, national or global - are becoming highly competitive. Competition has
increased as a result of wider access to new technologies and the increased trading and knowledge-sharing
opportunities offered by the Internet.

•The business case for innovation

•Approaches to innovation
•Planning innovation
•Encourage innovation in your business
•Funding innovation
The business case for innovation
It is important to be clear about the difference between invention and innovation. Invention is a new idea.
Innovation is the commercial application and successful exploitation of the idea.

Fundamentally, innovation means introducing something new into your business. This could be:
• Improving or replacing business processes to increase efficiency and productivity, or to enable the business to
extend the range or quality of existing products and/or services.

• Developing entirely new and improved products and services - often to meet rapidly changing customer or
consumer demands or needs.

• Adding value to existing products, services or markets to differentiate the business from its competitors and
increase the perceived value to the customers and markets
Innovation can mean a single major breakthrough – e.g. a totally new product or service. However, it can also be a
series of small, incremental changes.

Whatever form it takes, innovation is a creative process. The ideas may come from:
• Inside the business, e.g. from employees, managers or in-house research and development work

• Outside the business, e.g. suppliers, customers, media reports, market research published by another
organisation, or universities and other sources of new technologies.

Success comes from filtering those ideas, identifying those that the business will focus on and applying resources
to exploit them.

Introducing innovation can help you to:

• improve productivity
• reduce costs
• be more competitive
• build the value of your brand
• establish new partnerships and relationships
• increase turnover and improve profitability
Businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of:

• losing market share to competitors

• falling productivity and efficiency
• losing key staff
• experiencing steadily reducing margins and profit
• going out of business
Approaches to innovation
Innovation in your business can mean introducing new or improved products, services or processes.

Analyze the marketplace

There's no point considering innovation in a vacuum. To move your business forward, study your marketplace and understand how innovation can add value to
your customers. For more information on analysing your marketplace, see the page in this guide on planning innovation.

Identify opportunities for innovation

You can identify opportunities for innovation by adapting your product or service to the way your marketplace is changing. For example, if you're a specialist
hamburger manufacturer, you might consider lowering the fat content in your burgers to appeal to the health-conscious consumer.

You could also develop your business by identifying a completely new product. For example, you could start producing vegetarian as well as meat burgers.

You could innovate by introducing new technology, techniques or working practices - perhaps using better processes to give a more consistent quality of product.

If research shows people have less time to go to the stores, you could overhaul your distribution processes, offering customers a home-delivery service, possibly
tied in with online and telephone ordering.

If your main competitor's products have a reputation for being cheap and cheerful, rather than trying to undercut them on price you could innovate by revamping
your marketing to emphasize the quality of your merchandise - and consider charging a premium for them.
Planning innovation
Some innovative ideas may just come to you out of the blue. However, you should ideally have:
• innovation as part of your business strategy
• a strategic vision of how you want your business to develop - if you dedicate your time to monitoring trends in your
business sector, you can then focus your innovative efforts on the most important areas.

Innovation will not only improve the chances of your business surviving, but also help it to thrive and drive
increased profits. There are lots of practical ways of assessing whether your ideas have profit potential:

Assess the competition

Find out who your competitors are and where they operate. Use the Internet and advertising sources such as the
Yellow Pages to find out about their products, prices and operating culture. This can give you an overview of their
selling points, as well as any areas you might be able to exploit.

For example, if the competition is focused on value for money, you might want to emphasise the quality of your
product or service.
Study market or industry trends

Awareness of the climate in which your business is operating will help you to plan.

You can find a lot of information about your industry on the Internet. Business and trade magazines will also
feature useful articles.

Build a relationship with your customers

It's not enough simply to know who your customer base is. You need to communicate effectively with them as well.

Communication involves not only listening to their needs but also actively observing their behaviour around current
products and services and generating ideas on how you can make improvements.

Involve your suppliers and other business partners

Pooling your resources with your suppliers or other business partners will help to produce and develop creative ideas.
Potential partnerships can also be developed through business networking opportunities.
Next, consider what taking a particular innovative step could mean for your business. Ask yourself:

• what impact it will have on your business processes and practices

• what extra training your staff may require
• what extra resources you may need
• how you'll finance the work
• whether you'll be creating any intellectual property that will need protecting

Finally, you should include your vision in your business plan by:

- putting down your goals, both long and short term and detailing how you intend to achieve them
- linking goals to financial targets, such as achieving a specific turnover by a set date
- reviewing your plan regularly.
Encourage innovation in your business
There are many sources you can use to help generate new ideas for the business.

Suppliers, business partners and business network contacts can all make valuable contributions to the creative process, as well as providing
support and encouragement.

Your employees are also a vital asset in generating innovative ideas.

To get the most from them, you need to create an innovative environment and encourage creative thinking.

Steps to promote innovation

• Make sure you have processes and events to capture ideas. For example, you could set up suggestion boxes around the workplace or hold
regular workshops or occasional company away days to brainstorm ideas.

• Create a supportive atmosphere in which people feel free to express their ideas without the risk of criticism or ridicule.

• Encourage risk taking and experimentation - don't penalize people who try new ideas that fail.

• Promote openness between individuals and teams. Good ideas and knowledge in one part of your business should be shared with others.
Teamwork, newsletters and intranets can all help your people share information and encourage innovation.

• Stress that people at all levels of the business share responsibility for innovation, so everybody feels involved in taking the business forward.
The fewer the layers of management or decision making in your organisation, the more people feel their ideas matter.

• Reward innovation and celebrate success. Appropriate incentives can play a significant role in encouraging staff to think creatively.

• Look for imagination and creativity when recruiting new employees. Remember that innovative thinkers aren't always those with the most
impressive list of qualifications.
Funding innovation
There are a number of ways you can fund your growth through innovation, either by using your own funds or tapping into
external funding such as loans or equity finance.

However, any route to external funding will need a high-quality business plan that describes your business and sets out
detailed forecasts of where it's going.

Businesses often turn to their banks for a line of credit or loans for additional finance, depending on their borrowing needs.

If you're willing to relinquish some control of your business to external investors, you could consider using equity finance.
The two main routes for this are investment from business angels and venture capital firms:

• Business angels are wealthy individuals who invest in private companies, typically from $30,000 to $500,000.
• Venture capital firms provide higher levels of investment in return for shares in the business.

Government programs

You may also wish to consider applying for a government program. This will only usually cover part of your project, but
you will retain control of the shares in your business. Consult Programs - R&D and innovation.

Other sources of help

Small and medium-sized businesses can claim tax refunds and credits on appropriate research and development spending.
What are a few Emerging Trends in Social Entrepreneurship Development?
As social entrepreneurs looking to bring their ideas to serve communities, students need to keep track of evolving trends
within social entrepreneurship. The ethos of social entrepreneurs lies in the social challenge they seek to solve with their
venture. It also provides a lens for how they look at opportunities. Some emerging trends in social entrepreneurship look like

1.Public-Private Community Partnerships

Social innovation encourages a blend of efforts from three parties - social purpose organizations (SPOs), the government, and
the community, working together to fulfil societal needs. When initiatives fail to look at the community and involve them in
decision-making processes that affect them, they will be less inclusive. While SPOs provide funds and expertise in an
economically viable business model, they need to be guided in the right direction by active participation from the government
and community.

2. Creating Shared Value

Social entrepreneurs look at functioning in a framework to maximise economic growth in conjunction with social progress.
By creating value on both fronts, the social entrepreneur will also have to focus on the communities’ needs where it
functions in. Sharing created value will look like expanding the framework, expanding the total wealth of knowledge and
expertise for mutual and social gain.
3. Increased Impact Investing
The focus for social entrepreneurs here is to provide funding to sectors such as healthcare, education, conservation, renewable
energy, etc. Besides financial profit, the emerging idea is to address the needs with a positive social or environmental impact.
Investments in impact-based social enterprises could take the form of blended fund portfolios. Social entrepreneurs will
continue to benchmark the investments with an impact return, leading to efficiency.
4. Promise of Technology Adoption

Social entrepreneurship will increasingly need to appreciate the value that technology could bring to social change with proper
training and empowerment. Technology can transform social entrepreneurship initiatives by effectively utilizing information,
creating value and enriching capabilities. Leveraging technology by social entrepreneurs could have a transformative effect by
creating self-sufficiency, employability and opportunity, thereby playing a pivotal role in solving social challenges. Besides,
technology adoption will impact the perception of marginalized societies as greater adoption will lead to a realization of
potential and capabilities.

When the sector boundaries blur, the aspiring social entrepreneur needs to keep up to date and sync with these new trends. The
rapid rise of social entrepreneurship assumes crucial dimensions that offer different thought processes.
How do Social Entrepreneurs play the role of Change Agents?

The rising trend of Social Entrepreneurship is fueled by the need for organizations to adopt a human-centric approach to
business. The sustainability of society and organizational success is the new mantra as government apathy, and the failure of
capitalistic methods keep increasing disparities and putting pressure on resources.

Gregory Dees, who is known as the ‘Father of Social Entrepreneurship Education’, states that social entrepreneurs act as
change agents by:

1. Adopting a mission to create and sustain social values (not just private values)
2. Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission
3. Engaging in the process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning
4. Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
5. Exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created
Entrepreneurship, the pursuit of opportunities despite lacking the necessary resources at the outset, is often celebrated as a
hero of the global economy.

Globalization, on the other hand, is often criticized as a villain contributing to rising inequality.

Globalization works hand in hand with entrepreneurship in three important ways.

First, globalization facilitates technology entrepreneurship by fostering the rise of innovation ecosystems. This might include
engagement between new ventures, and large multinational enterprises.

Second, globalization facilitates transnational entrepreneurship.

Third, globalization facilitates social entrepreneurship. This involves creating wealth while simultaneously addressing vexing
societal problems such as environmental degradation, poverty and poor health.

We find that the spread of knowledge and technology across borders has intensified because of globalization. In
emerging markets, the transfer of technology has helped to boost innovation and productivity even in the
recent period of weak global productivity growth.
National Systems of Innovation
The concept of a national innovation system (NIS) has been gaining popularity as a core conceptual framework for
analysing technological change, which is considered to be an indispensable foundation of the long-term economic
development of a nation. The needed infrastructure components for an effective NIS pose a challenge to many
developing countries. Therefore, the successful experiences of newly industrialized economies are investigated to
explain the divergent evolutionary patterns among these distinct national innovation systems. This paper focuses
on synthesizing a conceptual framework suitable for adoption by developing countries. The proposed framework
might guide developing nations in designing national innovation systems that would help them manage the
technological innovation process in a more systematic way.

Framework of NIS for developing countries

Building Capabilities and Creating Value - The Rise of New Players on the Innovation Stage

Innovation for Development

Sustainability-led Innovation

- The Challenge of Sustainability-led Innovation

- Sustainability-led Innovation

- A Framework Model for Sustainability-led Innovation

- Managing the Innovation Process for Sustainability

- Responsible Innovation
Entrepreneurial Creativity

 What Is Creativity?

 Creativity as a Process

 (Why, When and Where) Does Creativity Matter?

 Who Is Creative?

 How to Enable Creativity

Putting It All Together: Developing Entrepreneurial Creativity