Headlines
Trends in Small Business - 4/6/2009
Mountain View, CA - New research shows that innovation will be essential for small businesses over the next decade as they try to thrive and survive by seizing new opportunities, improving their competitive position and providing more value to their customers.
The findings appear in the latest Intuit Future of Small Business Report, sponsored by Intuit Inc. and written by Emergent Research. It focuses on the key factors that drive, enable, amplify and shape the outcome of innovation, and the six characteristics of innovative companies. The report is part of the ongoing Intuit Future of Small Business series, conducted by Emergent Research and the Institute for the Future.
Compared to large corporations, small businesses have a number of innovation advantages that enable them to more readily identify opportunities, quickly react to changing conditions and remain competitive. Their smaller size makes it easier and cheaper to try new approaches faster than larger businesses. These six enablers include:
- Personal passion: Personally invested, most small business owners are willing to try new approaches to make their business more successful.
- Customer connection: A deep and direct relationship with the market and customers helps small businesses understand customer needs, identify new opportunities and fix problems quickly and efficiently.
- Agility and adaptation: Unlike large corporations, small businesses can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and implement new business practices.
- Experimentation and improvisation: When pursuing new opportunities, many small business owners and managers aren't afraid to experiment and improvise, accepting failure as part of the path to success.
- Resource limitations: Small businesses are adept at doing more with less. And these resource constraints lend to their innovative mindset.
- Information sharing and collaboration: Small businesses traditionally rely on strong social networks to share information and inspire innovative thinking.
In addition, other factors amplify the ability to innovate. They include use of technology, access to capital, fostering a culture that values experimentation and building market knowledge. Also, government regulation can spur or rein in innovation.
Market-sustaining innovation describes the ongoing refinements, or incremental innovation, in products and processes that most businesses regularly churn out to improve productivity and financial performance, increase customer satisfaction and save time. It includes about 80% of a firm's innovation efforts, driven by an opportunity to make something better, not create something new. This type of fine-tuning may be as simple as offering a customer the chance to lease a product or service, rather than purchasing it outright. While not widely visible, it creates a new playing field that keeps small businesses competitive.
In contrast, market-changing innovation occurs on both large and small scales, and represents fundamental product, technology or business model changes that shift the competitive landscape of an industry. eBay is a classic example of a breakthrough company that changed a market by disrupting traditional retail systems. While rare, these innovations are highly visible and industry changing, essentially rewriting industry rules.
"Innovation is in small business DNA. Yet, many entrepreneurs don't realize that some of the great offerings and processes they create are innovations," says Steve King, partner at Emergent Research. "Small businesses are the foundation of the economy, and they need to continually embrace new ideas and have the courage to pursue them to survive and thrive in any economic climate."
To read the full report, click here.
|
|
|
|
| 11/27/2012 | Welding Begins on Oregon Rail Project ...more | comments
Welders will connect two, 80-foot lengths of rail by a thermite welding process that superheats aluminum, iron oxide and alloy elements to produce molten steel and permanently join the rails. |
| 11/27/2012 | Airgas Chairman Sells 1.2 Million Shares ...more | comments
Peter McCausland sells 1.2 million shares of Airgas common stock in privately negotiated overnight block trade. |
| 11/27/2012 | New Gas Process for Controlled Ripening ...more | comments
Researchers set to revolutionize fresh fruit industry with new technology that converts ethylene gas into a powder form.
|
| 11/26/2012 | Specialty Gas Growth Projections ...more | comments
Report indicates slow and modest growth. |
| 11/26/2012 | ITW Names Successor ...more | comments
David Speer, ITW chairman and CEO, dies after illness. Scott Santi named successor. |
| 11/26/2012 | Cee Kay Supply Healthy Employer Finalist ...more | comments
Wellness program improves worker health. |
| 11/21/2012 | Lucas-Milhaupt Acquires Inmet ...more | comments
Company buys alloy maker and expands product line. |
| 11/21/2012 | LNG Plant For Southwest Florida ...more | comments
Air Products to build LNG plant in Florida. |
| 11/21/2012 | Low-Supply Helium Makes Parade Appearance ...more | comments
Should we be wasting our dwindling supply of helium on floating cartoon characters? |
| 11/14/2012 | Lincoln Acquires Three Businesses ...more | comments
Lincoln acquires shape cutting and engineered systems businesses. |
|
|
