Many people believe that innovation has a higher chance in a product based company rather than a service based company. I was one of those people, until I have realized the following points:
- Loyalty: It is about being loyal to your customers and treat them as your own company. You should reach a level where you believe that their products are yours as well! If you don't have this point then the following points are useless and you're not ready to innovate. It all starts by loyalty.
- No product is perfect: Engineers have tendency to consider their product as perfect and the best of its kind. Some of them they even skip the testing phase in order to avoid the fact of "defective product". Every product needs help, keep it in your mind and this is the first place where you might identify an opportunity to innovate. Start with the area that you master the most.
- Courage: Don't be afraid to express your ideas to the right persons at the right moment. That takes me to the next point!
- Collaboration: Share your ideas with your colleagues, listen carefully to them and address their concerns. That would either drive your idea to the next level or simply to the recycle bin. When your idea matures then share it with your customer where you should mainly focus on 2 parts: the added value to the product and the feasibility study.
I believe that the above 4 points have an equal weight in both service based and product based company. If you agree with me then you should now believe that innovation in a service based company has exactly the same chance as innovation in a product based company. However if you do not agree with me, then you have just lost 4 minutes of your time by reading my article!
