True innovation begins with an exciting new idea, but extends to its execution. And when they succeed, truly innovative ideas have the power to transform your company or even change the world!

So let’s look at some of the most common challenges companies face when starting innovation process.

Innovation Tip #1: Not Having Enough Of What You Need

Whether it’s people, budget, time, or technology, not having enough of what you need can make innovation almost impossible. Lack of resources leads to a downward spiral of conservatism. It leaves teams stuck in costly, inefficient, business models – which in turn leads to continually dwindling resources.

Innovation Tip #2: Having Too Much Makes You Inneficient

Too many resources, somewhat paradoxically, means you waste them. Constraining resources on certain projects to spur innovation actually works, because it also minimizes risk. If an experiment failes, you can minimize any sunk costs to your budget or team bandwidth.

Innovation Tip #3: Don’t Let Institutional Knowledge Kills Great Ideas

Imagine you come to a meeting with what you think is an exciting new idea – and then, when you present it, someone says, “Oh, yeah, we tried that two years ago. It didn’t work.” Don’t let a negative experience dissuade you unless you know (a) why it failed the first time, and (b) whether the same conditions apply this time.

Innovation Tip #4: Short-Term Vision Is Important

Once you have the long-term vision, build a few “how” pathways – and pursue them all until one rises to the top. When building your “how” pathways, try to create continuums of cost, effort, and realism: you should have a few ideas that are really out-there, some that seem totally doable, and some in between.

Innovation Tip #5: Hard Work, But Also Play

You probably don’t need to be lectured on the benefits of taking vacation. It gives you the space to be creative; it makes you more productive; it gets you promoted. All of these things help you innovate.

You can start here.

Innovation Tip #6: Combine Great Ideas With Top Tools

Last but not least, you need the tools that support and accelerate your innovation. We live in a world where it is not the big that eat the small, but the fast that eat the slow. Therefore it is critical for companies to overcome organisational and geographical siloses that slow them down.

At Agilcon we do just that: With IT solutions based on Salesforce technology we help our customers transform into agile, digitally fluent organisations which innovate by connecting with their customers, partners and employees in a whole new way. Find out how at www.agilcon.si. or visit us on 19th May 2016 at Salesforce Spring ’16 conference in Ljubljana.

Marko Perme, CEO, Agilcon