When government begin to ease the restrictions and stimulate the economic growth, the business recovery phase of the pandemic starts to unfold. Recovery phase is how an organization learns and emerges stronger. Recovery presents new challenges for leaders and teams to provoke innovative mind to accelerate business recovery. Leading consultants argue that this is exactly the time to gain competitive advantage, by investing in innovation that will pay off when the economy bounces back1.
Great innovation often comes with magical stories about a brilliant light bulb going off and the innovator then running around town like a mad man. We call it the “aha” moment. “Aha” moment that is also known as insight gained during stable awakened-awareness, higher level of conscious condition, low-gamma wave at the temporal lobe in the brain is activated, note that our brain produce electrical signal that can be interpreted into frequency groups depend on its characteristic. In order to gain insight, you need to connect the dots that you have from knowledge, experiences, as well as memories. Thus when you connects it properly, you will have that “Aha” moment2. Vanaya’s CARE model is scientifically proven in activating the brain pattern of “Aha” moment during the coaching session3.
We all know that maintaining innovation spend is the right strategy for the long term. But in current situation, we believe that the solution to this dilemma lies not in changing the level of spending on innovation, but in re-thinking the kind of innovation to which the spend is directed. There are five strategic areas to focus on innovation. Now is the time to provoke your mind to ensure that you could emerge from this crisis with a better shape than ever.
Cost Innovation
The key priority in strategic cost reduction is targeting resources where they can earn the best return, rather than just cutting costs in itself. The starting point is differentiating the capabilities needed to fuel profitable growth (‘good costs’ targeted for investment) from low-performing business and inefficient operations (‘bad costs’ targeted for overhaul or elimination). Take the example of Chinese, 79% of Chinese companies say their innovations will be focused on lower cost models compared with 65% globally4. Identify priorities of higher value-added for investments is the key for cost innovation.
Setting-up priority couldn’t be separated with the involvement of emotion within, while you might not realize it. The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), the front part in our brain, is the key region that involved in emotional conflict control. It prevents us to get distracted from irrelevant goal thoughts and keep us in-line with the targeted goal. Thus, which kind of emotion that will empower the effectivity of prioritizing? Who might thought that the answer goes to negative emotion encouragement. Turns out, the negative emotion encouragement triggers the prioritizing process faster in our LPFC and thus improve our performance. Given the current pandemic condition that force us to find a way that has never been exist before, this has to be the intrinsic push inside us to prioritize better with highest effectivity and efficiency5.
Business Process Innovation
Process is the combination of facilities, skills, and technologies used to produce, deliver, and support a product or provide a service. Within these broad categories, there are countless ways process can improve. Post-pandemic, digital technology will emerge a winner, with companies relying on digital channels, remote working and digital collaboration tools more than ever. We base this prediction on the positive experience many organizations have already experienced, including increased efficiency and productivity, which is leading them to ask the question, “Why have we not been working like this all along?”
As organizations adapt to changes in their ecosystems and supply chains, long-term changes require new ways of working. Agile leadership is increasingly needed in every leader in order to bring organization to bounce-back and rise. Agile leaders will leverage their innovation management practices and agile operating models to reinvent their business at pace. We will see these leaders move even further ahead of the competition with superior products, services, experiences and operations. Less agile organizations will struggle to balance available resources and priorities. Their lack of agility will delay strategic transformational activities, and we will see them limp along, or even shut down under the weight of recession.
Product Innovation
A global pandemic puts various challenges on product innovation. Learn from Google, in the early months of Covid-19, Google’s video conferencing platform grew exponentially. Keeping the lights on was no easy task. These challenges bring together a blend of product design, user experience design, and service design problems that are desperate for a solution where design thinking can help. Design Thinking is a new way of organizing work leads to extraordinary innovations. That blend of tools and insight, applied to a work process, can be thought of as a social technology5. When design principles are applied to strategy and innovation, the success rate for innovation dramatically improves. Stretch your talents’ brain to build an autopilot innovative capacity that will effortlessly like a blink of an eye by activating their innovative brain through Vanaya’s Brain-Blink Design Thinking®. Brain-Blink Design Thinking® is a brain-based design thinking solution that focuses on stimulating innovative brain pattern using brain-focused coaching approach called the CARE Model.
Business Model Innovation
Business model innovation reflects a fundamental change in how a company delivers value to its customers, whether that’s through the development of new revenue streams or distribution channels. Airbnb is the biggest accommodation provider worldwide without owning a single room, Uber is the biggest cab company without owning a single cab and Alibaba is the biggest retailer with no stock at all6. All of them have come up with new business models to deliver, create, and capture value and many others do follow.
Study found that when we are in the state of Flow, we perform at our peak. Flow increases productivity, performance, enjoyment and creativity. Flow doesn’t just heighten creativity at the moment. It actually trains us how to be more open to discovery and innovation. In the state of flow, your brain function change from beta wave activity that is dominant in hyperactivity into alpha wave that is hypoactivity which create “more space” in the brain, you will be more relax with a thoughtful mind7.
Sales Activity Model Innovation
As businesses shift to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, the sales profession needs to adjust the way we do business but not the why we do business. How can salespeople survive or even come out stronger during this disruption? Salespeople must learn how to excel at the remote sale. Think about how to turn everything virtual. For salespeople who’s used to the hustle and bustle of a lively office, the sudden change to remote working can be challenging. Keeping up with such rapid change in working habit is never easy for any professional workers. Not only do they need to find a new routine, but also they need to get a handle on new technologies for communication and collaboration. Transform your sales-people to keep productive, motivated, engaged, creative, and perform with Vanaya’s Sales Acceleration program with brain focused approach. Vanaya’s study3 found that our approach is scientifically proven can stimulate deep levels of creativity to solve complex problems, and generate innovation and ideation quickly.
References :
Yin E, et al. 2018. Rethinking innovation for a recovery. https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/rethinking-innovation-for-a-recovery/
Charpenter W. 2020. The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights. IntechOpen. 7(1) DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.84973
Puspa, L, Ibrahim N. and Brown P T. (2018) ‘Increase in gamma band qEEG activity during executive coaching: Some preliminary observations and possible implications’, in Major Issues and Other Topics Related to Mental Health, Neuroscience, and Cyber-psychology.
Syen Z, et al. 2020. Chinese-Style Innovation and Its International Repercussions in the New Economic Times. Sustainability Journal. , 12(1859) doi:10.3390/su12051859
Yang, Q., Wang, X., Yin, S., Zhao, X., Tan, J., & Chen, A. (2016). Improved emotional conflict control triggered by the processing priority of negative emotion. Scientific Reports, 6(1). doi:10.1038/srep24302
Landry L. 2020. Business Model Innovation: What It Is and Why It’s Important. https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/implementing-business-model-innovation/
Cheron, G. (2016). How to Measure the Psychological “Flow”? A Neuroscience Perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01823
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