“There’s a way to do it better – find it.” – Thomas Edison
Innovative thinking is the ability to come up with fresh and new ideas to create novel approaches to arising problems. To innovate is more than just to address problems – it’s to be creative, agile, and inspiring at the same time.
Several breakthroughs paved the way for many technological advancements, increasing the standard of technology and business solutions around the globe. What’s one characteristic that encapsulates all of these breakthrough companies? Innovative thinking.
With an innovative mindset, people start thinking forward. To think forward does not just mean to think about the future of a company, but to create things that would encourage, stimulate, and welcome the thought of the future. If the future looks and feels exciting, then one is incorporating innovative thinking.
Innovation is relevant to any type of business. For the corporate world, it’s to protect the existing market and to share and grow at a global scale.
Corporations being well-funded and allied with abundant resources (cash, people, network, tools, etc.) allow them to concretize innovative thoughts as quickly as possible. However, the structured composition of these corporations gives them rigid processes that are focused on shareholder value – if it is not well set up, it could then lead to “innovation paralysis.”
For start-ups, innovative thinking is something that should disrupt and disturb the existing companies and corporations. The thought of bringing something new to the table in the competitive arena is something that should never be underestimated by businessmen.
Startups being nimble, agile, and having limited overhead means that they are hyper-focused on solving a problem as early as the startup stage. The one disadvantage is that while innovative ideas may be abundant, they are also, more often than not, resource-constrained (limited cash, people, network, etc.).
Because of these reasons, corporations should be able to out-innovate start-ups, but only if they have organized themselves well for innovation – that is, making innovation and innovative thinking a part of their DNA.
Based on a study done on students by Pro5, in partnership with the University of Paris: Panthéon-Sorbonne,
- 0% knew about Friendster. Friendster was a social networking platform in the early 2000s that had 3 million users in the first few months, and boomed to over 100M users at its peak but went deep into the shallows when Facebook arrived.
- 8% still possess a Nokia device. Nokia used to dominate the phone market, owning approximately 50% of the market in 2007, but didn’t innovate well enough as the world slowly transitioned to smartphones. They weren’t able to keep up with the pace.
- 25% know of Kodak. It was once so popular that until today in the Philippines, “Kodak” is still a mainstream verb used to say “take a picture.” They used to own over two-thirds of the global photography market but didn’t innovate well enough with media convergence as photography became digital.
What do all these data say about these companies? Innovation paralysis. Many startups that were able to bring something new to the table incrementally caught up to their pace and were slowly able to overtake the competition because of their continuous innovative thinking.
Google is one example of a company that has made innovation a part of its DNA. Despite the threat of many surfacing search engines such as Ecosia where every search that the search engine gets surmounts to 1 planted tree in the globe, Google remains to be the top search engine in the world.
The reason why this has been so being that Google employees spend 20% of their work time on things that these employees would think will benefit Google in the future – incorporating innovative thinking every week. In this instance, Google employees decide for themselves what they should be working on.
Google’s “innovation first” culture is the key to their success. To date, they currently own approximately 90% of the search engine market.
Conclusion
Innovative thinking has helped many businesses overtake their competitors suffering through “innovation paralysis,” including those who were too slow to innovate.
At its core, innovation helps get things done – only better, new, and fresh. At the end of the day, it’s either you figure it out or others eventually will. Incorporating innovative thinking helps break the knowledge ceiling and allows for more technological breakthroughs that benefit the globe. It’s only a matter of who gets to this peak first.
Pro5
Pro5 was created from innovative thinking. There was something in the business arena that was worthy of filling the gap, and ever since Pro5 was created, innovation has been one of the core personalities that is embodied throughout the company.
How can Pro5 Help Businesses Innovate?
We help companies do what they do best, and convince them to outsource the rest. By tapping into Pro5, they are able to spend their valuable time focusing on the more important facets of their businesses, and these companies can quickly scale up by leveraging specialized and cost-effective agencies around the world. This not just saves money, time, and effort, but also helps reach people’s business goals significantly quicker.
By partnering with Pro5, we’ll make hiring a reliable and positive experience for you.
With Pro5, the future of work is here. Contact us today at team@pro5.ai!