Innovation; ideas to impact…

This year we are delighted to be sponsoring the Business Innovation Award at the Newark Business Awards. Innovation is crucial to the development of society. Moreover, with issues such as climate change, wealth divergence (leading to populism) and general demographic issues (leading to us living longer but not better), arguably innovation has never been needed more. However, we cannot just rely on our governments or large multi-national corporations to innovate and solve these problems… innovation always starts with one person having one idea, and so even the intuition of a small Nottinghamshire town can go a long way.

Today, it’s all about what people want and need, so it’s up to businesses to make sure that they have a good set of antennae to pick up on these trends. Successful businesses should not incur boundaries to innovation. Perhaps the biggest boundary comes from the culture within many organisations, as leaders often forget that innovation must come from within our own teams. Once an idea has been established, you need to set out a roadmap or strategy to lay out where and how innovation is going to help your organisation get to where it needs to be.

To encourage innovation, businesses need to create an atmosphere where creativity is welcomed, empowering colleagues with the confidence to deliver an idea, whilst making sure that they know it’s safe to make a mistake. After all, very few great ideas are launched on the basis of a single prototype alone. When the great Thomas Edison was asked about his firing after 10,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the lightbulb, he replied “I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” (Goodreads, 2019). Ideas are generated and then built over time through collaboration, both internally and externally. The term “open innovation” specifically refers to businesses working with suppliers and even competitors in order to create customer value.

At DB Wood we aim to be better in 6 months than we are today. We focus on producing a culture that supports and promotes innovation, working with our team and external experts to help facilitate improvements. This is why we chose to support the Innovation Award in the Newark Business Awards, as innovation and continuous improvement become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Central to our selection of the winner of the award was to measure the process of how well a business is managing innovation, or put another way, the way they turned ideas into impact, and if they have a supportive structure and climate to encourage more of it.

We’ve been tremendously honoured to speak to the nominees and get to understand their businesses to see how they’re propelling their sectors forward while bringing new life and ideas to our local community. We look forward to revealing who tip-toed slightly ahead of all the rest this evening at the Newark Business Awards. Good luck to everybody involved, and however big or small the innovation, thanks for making a positive step towards the evolution of both our local and global societies! 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3091287.Thomas_A_Edison