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Making money, cash flow – revenue generation lies at the heart of any successful organization’s ability to deliver the constant demand of ongoing and increased shareholder value. Especially during these anxious and perplexing economic times. Pursuing the right business growth strategy can be uncertain, unclear and challenging. As it relates to strategic planning, some companies focus their efforts on organic growth through the development of new products, new services, new business models, or new operational practices. Other companies, given today’s opportunities, look to acquisitions and alliances to access new products and services, intellectual capital, market channels, customers, human capital, improve technologies, and profits.

While these may provide a means or “quick fix” for revenue growth, a compelling argument can be made that companies must ultimately rely on their internal innovation engines and creative abilities to drive their business into the future. Winning companies use innovation, creative management practices, and reinvention of emerging technology as crucial drivers for intelligent business growth. Product innovation, even with competitor products, delivered rapidly to market through a responsive and agile supply chain, and delivered to customers through an agile, integrated customer marketing, sales, service and support capability provides the “green-backs” fuel to keep the engine running efficiently. This can be much more easily stated than implemented, but there in is the reason to start now. 

Your strategic planning process can help define a clear innovation agenda, and then build the capability to drive it. Innovation has and will continue to be considered just abused and overused business jargon until it’s intent is totally absorbed into the regular and ongoing business practices of today’s businesses. Start now, act now, as demand for innovation will only increase in the future.

By Linda Hyden: Life / Grief Coach & Management Consultant