Making The Most of Ideas through Investing in Innovation
“We are facing unknown customers and unstated needs, which make it risky. Don’t be a sheep. Instead of minimising the risks, we want to maximise the outcome of great ideas.” — Bessie Lee, CEO/Founder Withinlink.
China was once known for its imitation products. But year after year, the country has been proving itself to be the powerhouse for innovation and technology. From the transformation that took place, the world wondered, what is the Chinese’s foundation of cultural nuances for its creativity and entrepreneurship that has raised up these changes?
Surviving in the Chinese market is a formidable challenge for entrepreneurs and one that should not be taken on flippantly. With her deep understanding, Bessie Lee, the founder of Withinlink, gives us an inside look on how innovation and empowerment in organization help China excogitate changes, as well as keep up with the trends to tackle the challenges in order to create transformation.
The 5 factors
Innovation sounds positive but it can be challenging to be internally implemented. In the competitive arena of marketing and advertising, companies are competing to create new innovations that can answer public needs. Therefore, as the next generation of innovators we have to fathom the 5 factors that help innovators ignite changes.
Within her presentation, Lee elaborates 5 factors that help success across more than 200 companies, mentioning timing (42%), team/execution (32%), idea ‘truth’ outlier (28%), business model (24%), and funding (14%). Interestingly, for a start-up business, timing and team are not unique things. However, what makes a start-up unique is its willingness to trial and error.
Helping start-ups find their way for years, Lee also explains how the right timing has become the foremost factor in innovation. Here’s one of the real cases, amidst this pandemic, Shopee comes up with online marketplace convergence to adjust the consumer needs. They provide the experience of one app for all, from online shopping to ordering food while staying at home.
The some-other factors
In order to create innovative solutions to tackle the consumer needs at the right time, Lee mentions some other factors worth manifesting. Firstly, identify one critical challenge that your organization is facing, and start putting together a team with true believers in innovative thinking. Secondly, give your team a total empowerment as well as a green channel to report directly to the CEO.
Above all, removing the system of silos within the organization is highly required. Most of the time, innovation has to involve several teams and divisions to make it happen. It is not just down to one department or one team. Therefore, a company has to figure out an effective way of breaking down silos or at least making sure that the silos can collaborate effectively with one another to ignite changes through innovative ideas.
Eventually, the way most of the organizations work as described above is finally able to help China compete at a global level with developed nations that have built their economies on innovation for decades, and bring the country, itself as the 14th-ranked country in the World Wide in terms of innovation capabilities.
