Need for innovation in medium-sized companies
Corporation utopia and reality in medium-sized companies – parallels and differences in dealing with technological innovation
Innovation is inevitably linked to strategic action, development and future-oriented thinking and can create significant competitive advantages. Conversely, innovation deficits can endanger the position of a company on the market in the long term with a risk of sluggish regression. Pressure for renewal comes from all sides. Developments in the field bring new technological possibilities with them, customer and behavioural developments create new needs and developments in the context of competition – for example through increasing internationalisation or professionalisation – and challenge further your own position on the market.
Apparently, revolutionary new technologies do not necessarily result in immediate success or competitive advantage – who remembers the 1-liter car from VW? Even Google overestimated its smart glasses and attached more weight to the sensation factor than to the actual market need for such device. Utopian prestige projects like these are rather uncommon in medium-sized businesses. In the 80s and 90s, competitive advantage was generated through process innovations, i.e. through pure cost efficiency, later replaced by performance innovations and the incorporation of additional added value. The competition was primarily based on the relationship between price and cost. Customer benefit was neglected for a long time.
Strategically, the price as primary marketing instrument is easy to attack, especially for companies with a medium-sized volume in terms of price-quantity relationship. Security, wealth and durability can only be achieved through preference – a phenomenon with enormous economic potential and no fewer high demands on marketing strategists. Optimised user experiences as well as the strategic development of customer journeys are therefore very important in today’s competition and will become even more relevant in the future. Customer-centred approaches provide measurability for increased growth. Companies with integrated marketing strategies and technologies are ahead of their competitors. Marketing innovation has long since replaced performance and process innovation as a key competitive factor. Just as cost efficiency and value creation gave way to the simultaneous concentration on content and data as an essential strategic success factor.
Being an innovator and defining the digital sector as a relevant investment and field of development is therefore a clear advantage in creating long lasting preference among customers. This applies provided that a digital ecosystem is built, based on a technologically solid and sound framework. The profitability of investments can be traced in detail thanks to ROI measurements and allows marketing experts to optimise in a targeted, selective and cost-saving manner. Result-oriented strategic consulting brings valuable digital competences – professionally organised knowledge transfer generates clear and measurable competitive advantages over the long term.
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