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2.4: Sources of Business Ideas

  • Page ID
    66778
    • Anonymous
    • LibreTexts

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    Learning Objectives

    • Small businesses must be open to innovation with respect to products, services, marketing methods, and packaging.
    • Creativity in any organization can be easily stifled by a variety of factors. These should be avoided at all cost.
    • Small businesses should be sensitive to the emergence of new social and consumer trends.
    • Online databases can provide even the smallest of businesses with valuable insights into the existence and emergence of social and consumer trends.

    Exercises

    1. Generate a new product or service idea. You should be able to describe it in two or three sentences. Work with your fellow students in groups of three to four and then ask them to review their ideas and select one for presentation in class. At the end of the presentation, everyone should write what he or she saw as occurring during the process of group decision making. Did it make the process more creative? Did it allow for the better evaluation of ideas? Do they see problems with this type of group innovation thinking?
    2. In Exercise 1, students were asked to develop a new product or service. Repeat this exercise but now ask students to think up an innovation for an existing product in the area of either packaging or marketing. Again, ask them the following questions after the group decision-making process: (a) Did it make the process more creative? (b) Did it allow for the better evaluation of ideas? (c) Do they see problems with this type of group innovation thinking?
    3. Consider that you are at the gym mentioned earlier in this section. This gym is considering adding a weight-loss program. Use some of the online tracking programs with respect to the term weight loss program. What useful information could be extracted from these searches?

    This page titled 2.4: Sources of Business Ideas is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous.

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