Four Strategic Ways to Increase Innovation in 2021
And how you can weave them into planning and goal-setting.
Businesses are analyzing and expanding their strategies to prepare for the new year while also searching for stability amid lingering uncertainty from 2020. In either case, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to plan for the future. Many companies might wonder how they can develop innovative strategies while walking into the unknown of 2021.
Enter PROTO Accelerator.
“We help build a culture of innovation for corporate members,” said Tony Willis, president of PROTO Accelerator. “We help find and define where problems and opportunities lie and connect businesses with resources to help them both internally manage innovations and processes, as well as find solutions they can use to gain a competitive advantage when it comes to innovation.”
Willis and the PROTO Accelerator team have some ideas to help businesses incorporate innovation into their 2021 planning and goal-setting.
- Focus on what you can do. It’s never a bad plan to go for low-hanging fruit. While we acknowledge that working virtually isn’t the same, make a list of the things you can do and can control from a remote environment and hone in on those. How can you weave innovative ideas into those doable tasks that will increase communication with your consumer base or streamline team efficiencies? Being adaptive in business is always essential, especially now. But don’t discredit the tasks you are still able to achieve. Here are some examples:
- Transition internal communications to a group chat platform such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Research new markets for potential expansion and diversification.
- Engage with customers virtually to deepen relationships.
- Create a different yet still exceptional experience for your customers that stands out from the competition.
- Take this time to revisit and revamp your marketing strategy to better adapt it to the digital space.
Once you define what you can do, build goals and tactics to achieve them.
- Consider project timeline flexibility. Startups and corporations set to launch new products and ideas can evaluate setbacks from the previous year and use that experience to construct a new timeline for product development. This can allow for strategic decisions about labor, marketing and more. If there’s ever been a time for learning, it’s now. Reflect on how the current shifting landscape affects product launches.
- Provide advanced resources to customers. Plan to provide access to educational resources and information to your customers and prospects. With the absence of face-to-face interaction, this creates an opportunity for increased audience reach, engagement and brand recognition in addition to positioning your company as the expert. Restructuring your website, revamping marketing services and finding new, inventive ways to communicate can help you increase resourcefulness. The goal is to become more accessible to your audience and put yourself on the map in your industry.
- Try that idea you’ve been sitting on. Approaching the new year as a blank canvas can help startups and companies test strategies they’ve been meaning to implement but haven’t had the time or resources to tackle. Whether it’s a transition to a fully virtual environment or adapting your in-person business to our new reality, developing and implementing backup strategies can help businesses take their work to the next level in 2021.
We cannot control what the new year brings, but we can be adaptive, follow trends and try new things. Accelerator programs provide startups and corporations with the nimbleness and innovation they need to navigate the storms, and the sunny days, which can be the compass that guides you through the dark nights of uncertainty. It proves startups and corporations with the nimbleness and innovation they need to navigate the storms, and the sunny days.
To learn more about PROTO Accelerator, visit www.protoaccelerator.com.
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