3 Essential Types of Innovation for Every Company

1. Radical Innovation

The first type of innovation to understand is radical innovation, which is characterized as innovation that revolves around a drastic change to the company's positioning or product offerings. Radical innovation is often used because the main driving forces of innovation are customer experiences, revenue growth, and product development. When a company’s dynamics need improving, radical change is regularly deemed the best option.

Radical innovation can take many forms but ultimately revolves around bringing something entirely new to the table. Metromile, for example, provides a new business model for car insurance by paying by the mile. Radical innovation has often been the source of major human progress too, with the wheel and farming equipment standing out as great examples of this.

If the company plans to use radical innovation, it must become comfortable with failure. Many new ideas won’t work, but tools like KICKBOX turn radical innovation into a defined process. In turn, employees can work on ideas autonomously while still working with the organization’s framework. Crucially, it can take raw ideas and guide them toward implementation.

2. Incremental Innovation

The second type of innovation that companies should know is incremental innovation. This is essentially when innovation looks to build on the success of an existing product. It allows a product or brand to evolve without drastic change and is commonly used for businesses dealing in SaaS and tech products. Examples include the introduction of new software versions that aim to develop a better user experience over time.

Innovation is often iterative, as was the case for gaming company Rovio, who released 51 failed games before launching Angry Birds. So, it should be no surprise that incremental innovation is an equally crucial feature of modern business. It allows companies to keep advancing their output and also allows for data-driven decisions based on consumer feedback and trends. 

It plays a huge role in helping companies keep their products relevant and ahead of the competition while simultaneously taking customer care to new heights. Fuelling bottom-up innovation like Swisscom enables organizations to tap into incremental innovation powered by the perspectives of employees at all levels, including those that directly deal with customers. In turn, this can spearhead a faster identification - and subsequent solution - to ongoing problems.

3. Disruptive Innovation

The third type of innovation is disruptive innovation, which seeks to disrupt the market. It is often spearheaded by tech advancements that enable things to be done differently, opening the door to innovations that improve the user experience. This could come courtesy of convenience, financial savings, or a better outcome. Thanks to modern developments, innovation is more accessible for employees too. 

Disruptive innovation examples include Tesla’s impact on the automotive industry thanks to its EV innovations, Bitcoin’s disruption to finance, and Uber’s influence on the taxi sector. As with other types of innovation, disruption can be achieved via changes to the products, services, business model, logistics, and technological aspects. Through experimentation and evaluation for data-driven decisions, incredible results can be achieved.

As automation and AI continue to grow, alongside shifting consumer habits and generational transitions, disruptive innovation will play a central role in the coming years. Now is the perfect time for organizations to tap into their potential with a company-wide buy-in.