idealog's MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES

innovators have introduced new ideas into existence to

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ome may say this is a futile quest, as innovation is one of the most overused – and misused – words in the business world (The Uber of yet another industry? Ground-breaking) But we’re confident we know a truly innovative company when we see it.

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e also know that while there is an obvious attraction to the new, innovation isn’t always about large-scale projects or revolutionary business models. A simple idea can be transformative, too. Take Allbirds making a shoe out of wool, or KidsCoin teaching children about money through a virtual currency.

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o, how did we define what’s innovative? We looked for companies that have broken away from the standard modes of thinking and are embracing the transformative power of creativity, technology and design to solve an issue facing the world today.

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ut it goes further than that. We didn’t just want to hear about great ideas in theory, we wanted to see how businesses are actually implementing and executing them to the best of their abilities. After all, the greatest innovators don’t let transformational ideas be born and die in isolation – they try, try and try again, going through many iterations until they arrive at a refined and perfected idea.

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r as Sir James Dyson, the inventor of the first bagless vacuum cleaner, the Ballbarrow wheelbarrow, the Dyson Airblade and countless other products put it: “It's the unlikely juxtaposition of creativity and logic which causes the wooliness and confusion around the term 'innovation'. Everybody wants to be innovative, many companies and ideas are proclaimed to be innovative and no one doubts that innovation is a money spinner. And, thus, we are all looking for the magic formula. Well, here you go: creativity + iterative development = innovation.”

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o without further ado, feast your eyes on the New Zealand companies that we deemed to be Most Innovative.