Sunday 17 September 2017

Traders Looking To Innovate – The Next Step



Last week's theme on our website was to encourage innovation (we called it breaking things). The next step is to gain approval for your innovation idea so we had a chat with a senior management member this week and came up with the following advice.

The system these days is not as structured as it used to be.

Traders are encouraged to come up with ideas.

The future of the market relies on new ideas and innovation.

The best way for traders to approach this process is to formalise their thoughts so different levels of management can consider the proposal.

Small Business Victoria has a great template for a business plan which is designed to assist entrepreneurs analyse and present their proposal. They have a simple one page Business plan summary and details can be found here - Business Plan

The first port of call for an innovative proposal should be Category Managers although, whatever you do, a comprehensive written proposal is your best guarantee of success.

All proposals will be considered and there are some ingredients that we know are on the top of QVM’s wish list. Those things will include Melbourne Made, Aussie Made, and Regional Victoria Made. And there are important aspects of modern consumer expectations including environmental and social sustainability.

A trader will be concerned primarily about profitability but these days that will almost certainly include some more expansive considerations. Let’s put it this way – your idea to create increased profitability will have a better chance of success if it ticks some other important consumer and community expectations like environmental and social sustainability.

One more thing you should do before preparing your proposal is to read the QVM Retail Plan (click here). That plan is what drives market decision making, and accommodating its aims in your own plan gives you a better chance of getting a “Yes” to your innovation proposal.