The basis of innovation is concrete implementation.

Innovation and constant improvement are necessary for companies to achieve sustained growth and development. With each member of a company's own ideas and desperation for innovation, it is necessary to create a culture in which the members make a list suitable for their departments or positions and implement them one by one.

Usually, in an organization, innovation is thought to be done only by the department or the leader of the organization who is in charge of. Like that, innovation could be thought of as something grand and big. I approached innovation in a different direction. What is innovation? Is it just innovation to flip over all the past forms of work that have been so familiar so far? I don't think so.

 If the existing types of work had been wrong, our company would not have survived until now. I'm going to describe here the very small actions that I've been working on our tasks.

After serving as the president of a steel processing company in Mexico, I was transferred as CMO of a steel production company. As soon as I took the post, I did my own analysis of the existing sales performance. From the annual sales target, monthly sales target and performance were analyzed, and influencing factors like the number of production, inventory, etc. to sales was analyzed.

Afterwards, we divided customers by industry and looked at the numbers for the sales targets and performance of the classified customers. Daily analysis also confirmed which day of the week sales were the highest point of the week. I analyzed sales and operating profit by linking them, and listed sales goals and performance of each team.

Based on these analysis results, I made a list that I can expand the sales of company and link them to operating profits. I always value concrete implementation. While setting and proceeding with annual goals, I focus on what I have to do, what the team leaders have to do, and what the team members have to do to achieve the goals. Accordingly, I made a list of things to innovate in our marketing department. The list I made was reduced and shortened to about 100 pieces, and I numbered it on the whiteboard in front of my desk.

The innovation of our company, especially the marketing division, was aimed at achieving fixed sales goals and realizing profits, maintaining and developing close relationships with customers, and contributing to the company's sustainable growth by exploring new markets.

In the course of this series of activities, I have some emphasis on the members. For example, in parallel with activities aimed at achieving sales goals, I emphasized mail-backing to employees. For our company to continue to grow and develop, customer value should be at the top of any company's list. For us, customers should be in a partnership position where they must continue to grow and develop together. Every day I thought of practical activities that could help customers. One of them was a quick e-mail reply. In addition, this was a small practice of innovation activities.

I suggested to our members that we should not let our customers be curious. I told my members to let them know if the product they ordered was completed, to let them know what time the truck will arrive at the client company's factory if it is in transit, to let them know if there is an unexpected situation, and to let them know what we will do to solve it. It would be the best if we let them know in advance, but sometimes customers ask first. In this case, we should reply as soon as we received the email.

I emphasized on replying immediately when the client company sent us an email. It actually seems easy. However, it may not be easy for working-level officials. Countless emails come in a day, and it's not easy to respond to them one by one. Nevertheless, I emphasized that my members had to respond quickly to the client's. "Let's start improving our customer service from here."This is one of the examples we have undertaken in our innovation activities. I'm still convinced that in order for innovation to be succeeded, all members of the company must know what to do right now and practice every day, even small things.