Eight Disrupting Tips to Stand Your Business Apart

Businesses are seeking new ways to stand apart from rivals. Disruption is a fantastic way of doing this.

Embracing disruption isn’t just about implementing isolated initiatives; it requires a fundamental shift in business mindset. Founders must champion a culture where questioning the status quo is not just accepted but encouraged. They need to balance the tension between maintaining current operations and investing in potentially disruptive innovations.

We have previously shared our take on disruption and examples of industry leaders who are championing change. Read more here.

Here are our tips and ideas for how business owners can apply disruption in their own organisations:

1. Market scanning:

• Undertake regular market analysis sessions to identify emerging trends and technologies.
• Keeping an eye on current trends and spotting dips or downturns is also important.
• Use data analytics tools to spot patterns and opportunities in customer behaviour.
• Encourage cross-industry learning to import ideas from other sectors that have seen successful disruption.

2. 20% time or innovation time:

• Allocate dedicated time (like Google’s famous 20% policy) for employees to work on passion projects.
• Create an internal innovation lab or “blue sky thinking” team focused on disruptive ideas.
• Implement ideation and innovation challenges to spark creativity.
• Your employees are usually terrific disruptors – give them the space and time to be innovative with your blessing!

3. Approach to risk:

• Develop a “fail fast, learn fast” mentality that views failures as learning opportunities.
• Have clear risk profiles in place that encourage (and don’t discourage).
• Create a milestone staged process for innovative projects to manage risk while encouraging bold ideas.
• Reward calculated risk-taking, even when it doesn’t lead to immediate success.
• Ask for forgiveness, not permission!

4. Customer-centric innovation:

• Regularly engage with customers to understand their unmet or new needs and pain points.
• Use design thinking methodologies to develop solutions from a user perspective – a term used is human-centred design processes – or systemic processes and there are innovation grants for this! 
• Create feedback loops to iterate on new ideas based on customer input quickly.
• Use minimum viable products (MVPs) to test ideas quickly and cost-effectively.

5. Ecosystem engagement:

• Partner with start ups, universities, and other external innovators to access fresh perspectives.
• Participate in or create industry consortiums to collaboratively tackle big challenges. Again, this is great for grants for innovation and disruption.

6. Diverse and inclusive teams:

• Build teams with diverse backgrounds and skill sets to encourage fresh thinking.
• Nurture an inclusive and safe environment where all ideas are welcomed and considered.

7. Continuous learning culture:

• Encourage ongoing skill development and knowledge sharing across the business.
• Try reverse mentoring programs where younger employees mentor executives on new technologies and trends.

 8. Future scenario planning:

• Regularly engage in future scenario planning exercises to prepare for potential disruptive changes.
• Create a “future-back” strategy that envisions the desired future state and work backwards to achieve it.

If you would like to discuss how Helen may be able to support your business with start up funding please email: helen@streamlionconsulting.com 

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