What is idea generation?
Idea generation is the process of creating new or unique concepts in the business environment. It gives the direction to follow the defined objectives of the organization. It is a prominent function of the businessmen. They collect the information from the internal and external resources about the business, then set the targets as necessary to the businesses. It is only possible through environmental scanning, survey, analysis, and assessment. Selecting the best ideas is a challenging process. If a suitable idea cannot be selected it may hamper the business career.
Sources of Idea Generation
Idea generation could be possible with the collection of various information and opinions. There are different sources of idea generation, which can be described as follows.
Situation Survey
The situation survey is concerned with external environment analysis. It is mainly focused on outdoor information collection related to businesses. The external environment survey consists of technology changes, legal changes, social changes, economic changes, etc. Technology is prominent to support the task of the business. It is demanded by the customers desire changing and quality of products. Ideas are based on technology uses, it pays attention to establishing ideas into reality. Nowadays technological changes affect the business directly.
Legal changes are also influencing the business environment. Legal rules and provisions provide a set of different ideas. Based on the provisions businessmen define their budget and make plans to perform their task as the required condition. Through the liberalization at the present situation, government policy promotes the private sector, for business venture ideas. The government provides tax concession, subsidy facilities, location facilities, and other so on for new business ideas.
Work environment
The work environment consists of the business people’s objectives, goals, mission, and vision which provides entrepreneurs with ideas. All the functions of business are done according to meet the defined targets of the business venture. Entrepreneur’s quality, ability, experience, and interest also provide business ideas. Their uniqueness, creativity, innovation, and strengths support to generate new venture ideas.
Research and Development
Different sorts of researchers and developers find out new product ideas for the business venture. They use important sources to find clues for meaningful product development. It provides everyday new and unique opinions to follow the market rules and it helps to generate suitable business ideas. They research the market, customers, policies, environment, social changes, and also about the business people, and develop new business ideas by analyzing all the factors. It supports business status stay for the long term and also supports making suitable business plans.
Methods of Idea Generation
Ideas support the venture creation. Entrepreneurs use different techniques to create the best ideas. Here we can discuss some methods of idea generation.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group discussion method for idea generation. It is a well-known technique for the collection of information for idea creation. It involves groups of individuals freely expressing experiences or ideas which contribute to stimuli creativity of ideas. It focuses on quantity of individuals not quality, with the belief of greater probability of new ideas.
Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is based on visual techniques. It creates diagrams to represent ideas and ideas-related relationships. Different ideas are generated with unique natures and mind mapping starts the ideas with a central concept. It organizes various thoughts and uncovers the relationships of those ideas.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is used in business to analyze the internal and external factors. Different kinds of factors affect business activities, however, SWOT analysis helps to categorize the favorable factors and those that are unfavorable for the business venture.
Scientific Method
The scientific method is mostly used in fields of inquiry. In this method, a business person defines the problems, analyzes them, gathers their data, and makes probable solutions to resolve them, then chooses the best ideas supported by the business. This method follows the principles and processes according to business to develop new ideas.