The Innovative Business

A friend's son has a high concept to develop a unique business in Hong Kong. But my friend is not sure if the goods and services provided are what the market needs. Meanwhile, the business incurs fixed and variable costs, but no revenue stream is in sight.

The business of innovation is to deliver value by applying better solutions that the market needs. Alongside marketing and intellectual property, innovation is the catalyst to business development and economic growth. To innovate, a business should appraise its innovative capability, mine the innovation landscape, strategize the way forward, develop novel ideas, devise purpose-driven action plans, experiment and refine them.

In the start-up phase of an innovative business, the pace of development is relatively slow as novel goods or services have to be recognized by customers. When the brand has established itself, more customers may want the goods or services and business growth will increase rapidly. When the life cycle of the once novel goods or services begins to end, business will decline.

In order to sustain an innovative business in the dynamic environment, its boundaries would have to be pushed. This is so even for businesses that provide intellectual property related services. Acquisition of intellectual property rights and infringement litigation aside, innovative businesses need better innovation management strategies and action plans so that they can monetize their intellectual property portfolios in a cost-effective fashion timely!