How creativity can help grow your business

Why is creativity important in business?

1. New ideas drive innovation

Even if your company offers a popular product, it cannot simply copy what successful competitors are doing. For example, copying marketing campaigns will cause customers to confuse brands. And in order for goods to be bought from you, it is important to stand out from the background of others. For example, to make bright advertising, improve service or introduce modern technologies. Such innovations are impossible without fresh ideas.

Also creative companies. outnumber competitors not only in innovation, but also in financial terms. Creativity helps them attract customers and increase revenue.

2. Creative companies are easier to adapt to difficulties

At the beginning of the pandemic, many businesses faced difficulties. To survive, companies had to look for new ways to interact with customers, change supply chains, offer atypical products. For example, from 2019 to 2021, the global e-commerce market

increasedRetail e-commerce sales worldwide from 2014 to 2025 / Statista for a quarter. Darkstores began to develop - stores-warehouses that deliver orders to your home. The service sector has moved online - today you can study, play sports and even consult a doctor on the Internet. Companies that are not ready to look for new ideas and be flexible risk simply losing customers. After all, their competitors already offer interesting services.

3. Employees do not get tired of the routine

In people from birth laid downThe psychology and neuroscience of curiosity / National Library of Medicine curiosity and thirst for novelty. If a person performs routine tasks all the time, such work will easily bore him. Of course, sometimes you cannot do without standard procedures - for example, the annual report will have to be prepared in any case. But routine cannot be maintained at the expense of growth and development. If an employee suggests improving processes, don't brush it aside that "that's not the way the company does it." Support his initiative: when a person is given some freedom of action, he worksAutonomy Raises Productivity: An Experiment Measuring Neurophysiology / Frontiers more productive.

4. A creative mind helps you make decisions

When a company has been in the market for a long time, it is tempted to repeat the same actions. But approaches that worked 10 years ago can fail today. For example, advertising on TV and on social networks is very different - you can’t just shoot one video and expect that there will be no end to customers.

Creative leaders are less biased. They are looking not only for information that confirms their beliefs (for example, that advertising on TV is the best option), but also for evidence that they are wrong. This helps to look at the situation from different angles and act in accordance with the conclusions.

How to develop creativity in a company

1. Encourage employee initiative

Arrange brainstorming sessions during which employees will express their ideas. This method is good to use when a problem has arisen that does not imply an unambiguous solution. For example, you are planning a website redesign and want to ask your employees what useful features to add. During brainstorming, all ideas are welcome - even crazy ones. They cannot be criticized: when people are not afraid of disapproval, they are more willing to speak out.

It is important not only to collect the ideas that employees express, but also to implement the best of them. Authors can be encouraged with a bonus or a gift from the company to inspire other employees to share their thoughts.

2. Try to understand your consumers

Sometimes customers can suggest an idea for a product that will become the hallmark of the company in the future. For example, Grace Kelly inspiredSara G. forden. House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed Gucci to create the famous floral scarf. One day, the Princess of Monaco simply did not find such a thing in the brand's store, and the company developed a floral print.

Of course, it is not necessary to fulfill the wishes of every client. But it's worth looking into the trends. Creative companies resort not only to standard surveys and focus groups. For example, they use ethnographic research — they spend a lot of time with customers and observe how they use the product in a familiar environment. Let's say a toy company is watching a group of kids on a playground to understand their habits and preferences.

Analysis of customer behavior helps to look for new ideas. Connect web analytics tools and check which buttons are clicked by site visitors and which pages they spend more time on. Customer information will help improve the product, offer new services, and run unique marketing campaigns.

3. Don't be afraid to take risks

LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman believes that if a startup is not ashamed of the first version of the product, then it launched too late. This idea can be adapted for traditional business. If a company avoids risks by all means, it can remain far behind its competitors. After all, they will make decisions about new products and services, not you. Some risks may not really pay off. But failure will teach you to think strategically. You can analyze the experience gained and make a decision in the future that will lead the company to success.

4. Don't stop there

Even if today you do not know the end of customers, this does not mean that this will always be the case. Study how consumers react to your product and implement changes. Even large companies have to try something new. For example, Coca-Cola was not always sold in the famous shaped bottles. Drink at first went outThe History of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle / The Coca-Cola Company in a container that looked like bottles for pharmaceutical medicines. And some firms had to change not just the design, but the product itself. Let's say Netflix started as a disk rental service.