Innovation Vs. Time-Tested Strategy

Everywhere you look, it seems like there’s a new marketing manager tooting management buzzwords like “innovation” or “strategy”. With the proliferation of all these technical terms, it is quite easy for one to confuse and misuse these words.

According to Oxford Languages, a strategy “is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim” while to innovate is defined as “making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.“

When these two definitions are placed side by side, it can seem quite ridiculous how they are often used interchangeably. Strategy is a long-term plan taking into consideration all surrounding circumstances surrounding an organization to reach a particular role.

As the workforce’s fascination with innovation and creativity continues to grow, companies are beginning to spend millions in time and money to innovate. Innovation, by definition, is synonymous with failure; a scenario companies avoid like a plague. Failure is often too costly for already-established companies. This is why it can be very hard for companies to truly innovate.

As a result, a lot of the innovations we see in the marketplace are from startups and young companies. This is because have more flexibility to fail, learn and recover, enabling innovation to flourish

On the other hand, most mature companies have developed time-tested strategies over multiple years of operations. They’ve fine-tuned these strategies as younger, more innovative companies and have gotten the “magic potion” that works.

As a company becomes more mature and consequently bureaucratic, it becomes harder for it to innovate. The five stages of a company’s growth are; development, startup, growth, maturity and renewal/decline.

Oftentimes, innovation is prevalent during the development, startup and early growth stages. However, by the late growth and maturity stage, strategy takes on a much larger role...



To be continued