Innovate or become extinct?

We often hear about the debate between innovating or dying out. But specifically, what is innovation?

Let’s see some ideas together and why it is important to understand innovation to cultivate it.

“Generally when we talk about innovation we think about technological innovation. For us at ExWorksMilan it is crucial because we are carrying out a revolutionary project. Innovation, however, also relies on the company’s resources, new ways of organizing work and business processes, and changing mindsets. This is because if you are resistant to change there will never be and will not offer innovation. Technological innovation alone will not be sufficient to maintain a competitive advantage. For this reason, therefore, it is essential to exploit also non-technical types of innovation (in organizational innovation, workplace, marketing strategy or business models)”..

This is the thought of Silvia Calciolari, Founder of ExWorksMilan. For her, innovation meant changing the paradigm, having the courage to get involved in a dream, to enjoy the freedom to make of their ideas a Faith and to bring an innovative change in the hospitality world.

To be in line with progress, which had now become exponential, we must innovate.

It is estimated that artificial intelligence, in 2023, will be equal to that of the human being. In 2045 it will be so envolved as to be equal to all human intelligences on earth. What does this mean for companies (and for hotels)? The response is immediate. If a company or a hotel does not innovate, they will become extinct.

Let’s make an example. Surely all of us in the past have had a cell phone. Today, what happened to the companies that made mobile phones? They are gone. Why? Because they did not innovate and did not want to take a risk.

It is estimated that in 10 years 40% of the top 500 companies in the world listed in the American Standard & Poor Index will no longer exist. If we look in history, of those that were present in the list of the top 500 companies draws up by the American magazine Fortune, in 2017 there were 12%.

After reading these data it is natural to wonder what will happen in the future.

It seems that many professions will no longer exist because they will be replaced by the artificial intelligence. The half-life of a person’s professional skills in 1982, for example, was 30 years, today it is 5 years. The technological or scientific subjects that students study today at school or university are already obsolate.

So, what do we do? Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunes, economist and banker, believes that all of us were born as entrepreneurs because we lived in caves and we had to get food for both ourselves and animals. All this was then lost because civilization and the process led us to verticalize and repeat the same activities without evolution.

Following the thoughts of Yunes and other experts:

“We must find the primal instinct within us” cit. The Start-Up of You

Since, in the future, specialization will no longer be rewarded, it will always have to be work in progress. It will be necessary to create a continuos culture and, above all, to try to do a job that combines passion with the need of the market. You have to take measured risks, you have to have courage.

It is not necessary to have any kind of knowledgeand culture of innovation. What you need to do, however, is take a blank sheet and draw on the knowledge you have or create the knowledge you don’t have, studying or making use of professionals who can guide you and accompany you on a path of growth.

Innovation is therefore synonymous with growthand success. Innovation has, in fact, the advantage of being both a process and a result:

• process, because has an impact on the internal stakeholders of a company, addresses end users and responds exclusively;
• result, because the result projects new solutions and excellent results.

Hospitality innovation management is one of the most prominent topics in the hotel industry, tourism and travel management, both academically and professionally.

It was noted that many hoteliers are interested in innovations and are excited to see how technological innovations and these so-called “non-technological innovations” contribute to new and profitable revenue streams and give a competitive advantage to users.

Very few academic studies have helped hotels better understand the current state of hospitality innovation strategies and assess how complex innovations affect the overall utility of the company.

Let’s try to understand what are the different types of innovation and the components of it. Innovation can be:

• technological;
• non-technological;
• of “new practices”.

Technological innovation

In hospitality there is a clear relationship between the overall innovation strategy and technological innovation.

Particularly positive and statistically significant differences includes: ROI, overall customer loyalty, sales growth and avarage bed occupancy. In addition, technological innovation also includes innovation:

• of products/services, which in hospitality translates into a new way of customer/guest loyalty;
• of the process, that is a new method of production.

Non-technological innovation

The so-called “non-technological” innovation includes two directions: organizational innovation and managerial innovation.

Organizational innovation is conceived as a new method in business practices, marketing strategy or hotel business model. Its objectives are:

• the optimization of the performance of the hotel;
• reducing administrative and transaction costs;
• the increase in job satisfaction.

Managerial innovation consists of all the operations and procedures through which the company organizes its activities (e.g. Human Resources, information flows…).

Innovation of “new practices”

Finally, it is appropriate to talk about the innovation of “new practices”.

Although sustainabilityand open innovation are not part of the innovation strategy of many hotel companies, increasingly, hospitality companies are moving towards these new elements. They allow you to redesign the consumer experience and develop broad networks of relationships to improve business performance.

ExWorksMilan – Innovation in Hospitality is an innovative and unconventional force for change in the hospitality industry. It firmly believes in innovation and offers solutions, including technological, to support Change Management processes and makes use of Big Data in ordier to increase margins and turnover.

Do not hesitate to contact us for advice, our support will be super innovative! Fill in the formof the Contact section on our website www.exworksmilan.com or send an e-mail to info@exworksmilan.com. Rely on professionals!