When you form a joint venture partnership with another entrepreneur, you are not just simply agreeing to paddle together in the same boat; you are essentially developing better paddles, and perhaps even a better boat. Innovation in your JV can result in great success through your shared expertise, resources, and contacts. Your job is to discover the innovative ways to harness your individual strengths to come up with a strategy for success.
Observe the Environment Around You
If you want to develop innovative ideas and solutions, you need to know what strengths you have, and what problem you need to solve. A good innovator is one who observes his or her surroundings. That means taking inventory of what strengths and resources you have, as well as being sensitive to listening and responding to market needs.
Find out what the market needs and what is in demand. Do customers need better delivery systems? Looking at the current economy, do they need lower prices? Take stock of what the market needs, and you and your joint venture partner can start to develop innovative solutions.
Analyze Opportunities
Once you have a good idea of what niche you need to fill or market needs that must be met, you and your joint venture partner can begin analyzing the opportunities and develop solutions. You may find that some opportunities are just too big in scope for your joint venture to tackle. Look for the ones that present opportunity to the strengths and resources of your JV partnership.
You may discover an opportunity that seems small, but is a veritable iceberg underneath the surface. But without careful observation and analysis, you would never have known the opportunity existed for innovation.
Keep Solutions Focused and Simple
Your innovative JV solutions should not be so complicated that it requires too much of your resources and time. For instance, though there is demand for fuel-efficient cars, there is no need to start from scratch and develop another gas-saving automobile. Let the experts and leaders in that industry continue working on that solution. Your innovative solution could be focused on an environmental "green" paint that could be used on environmentally friendly cars.
Innovation can also be just a simple change in a procedure or addition to a business practice. Keep your innovation solutions simple and focused in meeting the need that you have discovered.
Think Big - Start Small
Your innovative joint venture partnership may look at the big picture and look forward to big solutions for succeeding in a market niche. However, keep your innovative steps along the way small. Start with just one step at a time, and continue moving forward with your JV partnership only after you reach smaller goals. One step at a time gets you to the end of your journey, and finds you at the doorstep to your bigger, encompassing goal. Good luck with your innovative strategies!
