Innovation versus Business

Last night one of my colleague had asked me a question, what you want to be:
An innovator or a businessperson

I don't know why he asked such question but it seems that people have such sort of perception that innovation most of the time don't bring you any business, its by old and hard way you can do business and bring business but I think it is not true,

Most of the people will consider innovation as only in product/service as product/service development and they to consider it as a risky proposition, and yes to certain extent it is a risky proposition to put your bet on new concept but there are also other innovation that gives you competitive advantage

For illustration

1. Innovation in finance: Most popular example that comes in to my mind is of Reliance that how they convert debenture in to equity and they get rid from there debt.
   
2. Innovation in marketing: Try to innovate the way product appears in the market, say you can make a commodity based product like coffee in to a emotional product like Starbucks did (yes it take time and patience )
3. Innovation in product : This is the most common innovation try to create a new product a better product with higher efficiency low cost etc
   

Need a business idea look for pain !!

If you really want to innovate your business and improve your revenue look for the pain, usually that customer face daily.And they complain about it and you become a deaf on the problem, in latest I had a discussion with one of friend he want to go in to start his own business of computer and related products. So we tried to focus on where is the pain lies in this business, as he belong to that industry he simply said that its service of assemble PC is a pain for every customer, nobody (vendor) want to take a long term shot on the assembled PC, why not no body is providing a long term committed maintenance service for the domestic user, so I try to figure it out what service you can provide that may give some relief to the customer

1. Give him a long term option may be of two to three years by charging him a lump sum amount of maintenance fees no other charges neither for hardware, software nor for service.
   
2. Or give him a option to choose from the check list given say did he want to cover services only, or he also want to cover hardware and if hardware which one RAM, motherboard etc and charge accordingly
3. Guaranteed service with in a time period also if problem can't be fixed at the users house a temporary replacement of that CPU etc so user can continue his work without getting affected
4. Try to offer discount as you have no fund blockage in working capital
5. And the most important is risk as there is almost no risk as you have to invest a few thousand of Rupees....