Driving Innovation and Creativity at The Blue Space

As an online retailer you should always take time to reflect back on why you are innovating. Josh Mammoliti says the core vision of pureplay The Blue Space, is to make buying bathrooms and kitchens easier for its customers, so every time they get creative or innovate, they ask the question – “was that easier for the customer?”. Staying ahead in an industry constantly termed “digital disruption” can have its challenges, especially when it comes to continual innovation. Josh Mammoliti, managing director of bathroom, kitchen and laundry e-tailer The Blue Space shares his top tips on how he fosters an environment of innovation and creativity at The Blue Space.

1. Allow everyone in your business to be an innovator. There is no point having an innovative leader and a bunch of followers who are constrained in their thinking by set boundaries or practices. Trust your employees to be creative and find new ways of doing the simple things that could lead to solving the bigger ones.
2. Surround yourself with partners that push the boundaries. Innovation is difficult on your own and often it is the suppliers and partnerships we develop that help us push our creative side and leap ahead on innovation. We have found especially with the speed technology moves, partnering with a company such as we did with our 3D and VR tech, helped bring two businesses together that are specialists in their own field to create something that had not been done anywhere in the world.
3. Hard things are meant to be hard. Don’t be waivered from creative projects or innovating when you hit a wall or roadblock. There are often times when we have pushed a project aside because of this, but it is so important to assess why you are trying to innovate and see if the reason for attempting it is worth pushing ahead for. More often than not, we have found that just because someone else hasn’t done it before, doesn’t mean it is impossible or it is not what your customers want – you just haven’t figured it out yet.
4. Don’t get too busy working the old way. It is so easy to get busy and not take a look at what or why you are doing something the way you are doing it. It is often at this point when you need to push your team to be creative and innovative the most, as busy season should never stop for your business and you should always strive to get busier but smarter in your ways. I have always found a mentor, colleague or business partner that has a different take on you and your business is the best sounding board in these times, helping you see the big picture and focus on what is important.
5. Always take time to reflect back on why you are innovating. Our core vision at The Blue Space is making buying bathrooms and kitchens easier for our customer, so every time we get creative or innovate, we pose the question – “was that easier for the customer?”. We’ve found that by having one underlying vision for everyone to work by, makes resourcing creative and innovative projects so much easier and assessing whether the innovation was worthwhile so much simpler.

Read the full article here: http://www.powerretail.com.au/pureplay/driving-innovation-the-blue-space/