VoIP, Vital Strategy Helps Businesses Remain at the Cusp of Innovation

In order for any business to remain successful for the long term, portfolios must continuously be expanded to measure up to increasing user demands. Voice over Internet protocol, better known by its acronym VoIP, is helping companies far and wide to connect with a geographically separated customer base through a variety of channels including Web conferencing, instant messaging, e-mail and of course the phone.

When looking to penetrate new markets, many firms these days are leveraging the strategy known as “Ripple Innovation.” In a recent video featured on the Nextiva website, Mike Michalowicz highlights what it is and why your organization should utilize it before time runs out.

Michalowicz stated, “This concept relates to when you need to innovate your business you should start with the easiest concepts first and build your way up. If you can’t find a solution in the easy options though, you do need to build out.”

Want a specific example of a large enterprise that has leveraged this notion and seen positive results? Speedo, the famous maker of bathing suits used by professionals and just regular water lovers all around the world, recently decided that it wanted to change up the design of its swim line attire after those in decision making positions realized that the less material there was to the suit, the easier it would be to navigate through the water.

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He added, “So, the first thing Speedo did was look inside its organization and question if there were things that could be done in order to make a better bathing suit that weren’t already being done or if any of its other products were offering the ability to swim faster. Ultimately, if you can’t find the solution within your organization, then you must go the next ring or ripple out which involves analyzing if any of your competitors are already doing this.”

If you can’t first find the remedy to your business-related problem within the way you do things, looking at the ways in which competing providers are operating can give you the key insight needed to revolutionize your firm overall. Sometimes this doesn’t always yield the results needed though, such as in the case of Speedo, prompting it to progress to look at all industries and search for fresh ideas. The underlying concept here is if you can’t find it in your business and respective industry, perhaps there is another vertical that already has a version of this innovation that you can take and tweak to improve your bottom line.

Speedo wasn’t so lucky however, not being able to find what it needed within its four walls or its industry and made the decision to turn to nature. “That is exactly where Speedo found sharks. Sharks are the fastest swimmers in the ocean and after taking a closer look at their skin, the company found that the animal’s skin is actually rough not smooth.”

This technology was then applied to Speedo’s overall design and helped to make what are now being touted as the fastest bathing suits of all time.

That’s Ripple Innovation in a nutshell—looking inside your business for the answer needed to overcome an array of problems and if you can’t find it there, seeking information from inside of your industry and even outside of it. If you still aren’t satisfied, your final step should be searching for this crucial insight in nature.

Edited by Rory J. Thompson