Tag, Innovation

The entrepreneurial landscape in the UK is evolving rapidly, presenting multiple opportunities for aspiring business owners. As we move through 2024 and beyond, several key trends and factors are shaping the environment, making it an exciting time to embark on entrepreneurial ventures. This blog explores these opportunities, focusing on the diverse entrepreneurial landscape, increasing activity among non-white ethnic populations and immigrants, the emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), narrowing gender gaps, and a supportive ecosystem that fosters innovation and growth.

We can all agree that in today’s world growth is vital to every successful business, whether it is economic growth, growing a client list, or growing through innovation. Not only does growth help your business survive, it allows you to stand out in the market and thrive against your competitors.

On the 29th November, hgkc held their first roundtable in person since the pandemic. Located at Square Works Bristol the discussion focused on the upcoming recession and how the attendees could overcome the challenges they faced due to the crisis in Ukraine, Brexit and COVID-19.

hgkc Director and co-founder Peter Quintana facilitated the event and was joined by guest speakers Paul Netto, founder of visionary accountancy practice Equifino, Sam Talby, insolvency practitioner from Undebt, and Kim Jones, hgkc Director, co-founder, and innovation expert.

Due to the pandemic, the world has embraced the digital far quicker than anyone predicted. The move for many businesses to digital has helped to lower costs and improve relationships between the organisation and its consumers. Embracing digital transformation will affect the values, behaviours, and culture of the business, however, failing to embrace digital will mean your company does not change at the same pace as the world, and you will lose customers as a result.

We have said before that innovation is ‘something different that creates value’ taken from Eat, Sleep, Innovate by Scott D. Anthony, Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchard, and Andy Parker. So, why is your innovation not working? We at hgkc have compiled together a list of what might be stopping your innovation from generating value.

In today’s world, we see so many advances and changes in technology that the way we work and run our business is ever changing and with the coronavirus pandemic things have been forced to advance a lot faster than we ever thought. Working from home and the inability to see people face to face has forced many companies to start to rely on technology to run their business. Those that have failed to adapt have not survived COVID-19 and those that have are finding new and more efficient ways to work.

One of hgkc’s expert consultants, Peter Quintana has been recently certified in Market Opportunity Navigator and uses it to help our clients.

Innovation is ‘something different that creates value’ and businesses need to invest in their people and their innovations to grow and succeed in their objectives. However, some companies struggle to innovate and find it difficult to solve the issues they face.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic the way people work has changed. Home working has become the new norm and has affected the way business leaders manage their teams and how they innovate. However, there can be many advantages to remote working when it comes to your innovation using technology and collaboration practices. Many businesses have struggled because they have attempted to transfer the processes and methods they used when working in office, rather than adapting to the new environment.

No matter what type of innovation your business undertakes, you need to ensure that every member of your team has the opportunity and tools to generate creative and innovative ideas. As business leaders, you need to nurture innovative behaviour and help your employees feel confident enough to share their thoughts and give them the freedom to develop and research these ideas. Introducing some simple techniques into team meetings and everyday activity is a good starting point.

Who knows? Someone may have an idea that completely changes your business for the better.

When innovating it is essential that you protect your creative and unique ideas. Without protection your innovations can be stolen by competitors or copycats. Intellectual Property rights enable you to protect your innovations and understanding your protection options allows you to choose the best form of protection for you.

There are many factors that can affect your business and innovation. In this blog I am going to be looking at the PESTLE analysis, focusing on external factors that can heavily affect your business and therefore your innovation.

When it comes to innovation, at hgkc, we use the Three Horizons of Growth model with our clients. This is a concept developed by McKinsey that helps businesses focus their attentions between running their business today and innovating for the future. The framework helps you focus on your innovation and growth helping you to concentrate on executing already existing business processes whilst continuing to develop new capabilities for the future of your company.

In the UK, more than 80% of private-sector businesses are family-run with their own unique set of advantages and challenges: stability, commitment, and a long-term outlook on the one side, vs the family dynamic - potential disagreement and divorce, unstructured governance, and often a lack of succession plans on the other.

We were delighted when Peter was invited by Nigel Church and Paul Hillis of innovative IT support, cyber security specialists and digital transformation experts Emerge Digital to join them for a 'chat' for their podcast.

Our first virtual book club proved a great success despite not having the benefit of the Kensington Arm’s fabulous cake to help get the conversation underway!

"Innovation is an essential component of leaders embracing scale-up principles." This was one of the main conclusions arrived at when hgkc brought a dozen businesses together on the 23rd May to share their challenges with scaling.

TasteTech have deservedly been awarded Insider West’s Manufacturing Innovation Award at this years Made in the South West. Judges said the company shows genuine world-class innovation in a niche area for a South West family business.