Innovation has a specific definition and it is less exciting than the word suggests: implementing a new or significantly improved product or process. The operative word is implementing. An idea that has not been built and sold is not innovation, which is why most businesses describing themselves as innovative are describing an intention.
That definition, used by the OECD and widely adopted, makes the commercial test straightforward. Something new has to reach a customer who pays for it.
The problem has to be one people will pay to solve
Commercialisation only works where the problem is a genuine pain point rather than a mild inconvenience. People tolerate mild inconvenience indefinitely and pay to remove real pain. Before building anything, the useful question is what the customer currently does instead, and how much that costs them in money or time.
Large structural problems are the most reliable source
Food supply, water scarcity, waste, energy and rapid urbanisation are problems that are large, persistent and getting worse, which makes businesses built around them durable. Looking at those pressures as they appear in your own town or community is more productive than looking at global technology trends, because you can see the local version directly.
Turning waste into a product is a proven local pattern
South African businesses have built genuine enterprises by converting waste materials into saleable goods, from recycled art and furniture to agricultural by-products. The economics are favourable because the input arrives at little or negative cost, and the story that comes with it is a marketing asset most competitors cannot match.
Serving a market nobody served is innovation
Some of the country’s best-known businesses began because a product simply did not exist for a particular group of customers, hair care being the clearest example. That is innovation by the formal definition, and it required no new technology at all, only the recognition that a large market was being ignored.
Protect it once it works
A new product or process that succeeds will be copied, and the protections available differ by what you have made: patents for inventions, trade marks for names, designs for appearance. The international framework governing these is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, with South African registration handled locally, and it is considerably cheaper to establish before a dispute than during one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the formal definition of innovation?
Implementing a new or significantly improved product or process. The implementation is what distinguishes innovation from an idea.
How do you know whether a problem is worth solving?
By establishing what customers currently do instead and what that costs them. People tolerate mild inconvenience and pay to remove real pain.
Where should a small business look for opportunities?
At large persistent pressures, food, water, waste, energy, urbanisation, as they appear locally, since the local version is visible to you directly.
Does innovation require new technology?
No. Serving a market that existing products ignore meets the definition entirely, and several well-known South African businesses were built exactly that way.
How do you protect an innovation?
Through the mechanism matching what you made: patents for inventions, trade marks for names, design registration for appearance, established before a dispute rather than after.
Further reading
Originally published in February 2017. Updated September 2026 to set out the commercial test for innovation rather than the general discussion around the word.
