GEW Malaysia 2020: Innovation and Technology

Innovation is the commercial application and successful exploitation of the idea. Fundamentally, innovation means introducing something new into your business. For instance, improving or replacing business processes to increase efficiency and productivity, or to enable the business to extend the range or quality of existing products and/or services. Other than that, innovation adds value to existing products, services or markets to differentiate the business from its competitors and increase the perceived value to the customers and markets. 

Opportunities for innovation can be identified by adapting your product or service to the way your marketplace is changing. For example, if you're a specialist hamburger manufacturer, you might consider lowering the fat content in your burgers to appeal to the health-conscious consumer. You could also develop your business by identifying a completely new product. For example, you could start producing vegetarian as well as meat burgers. You could innovate by introducing new technology, techniques or working practices - perhaps using better processes to give a more consistent quality of product.

The role of technology in business caused a tremendous growth in trade and commerce. Business concepts and models were revolutionized as a result of the introduction of technology. This is because technology gave a new and better approach on how to go about with business. It provided a faster, more convenient, and more efficient way of performing business transactions. 

Some of the actions of technology in business include accounting systems, management information systems, point of sales systems, and other simpler or more complicated tools. Even the calculator is a product of technology. It is indeed unfathomable to summon the idea of going back to the days where everything was done manually, which basically means starting all over again from scratch.