Originally written by Mark Tighe on Small Business
Businesses grow by increasing sales. The more and the faster you sell, the quicker you will grow, conventional wisdom tells us. However, there are ways to accelerate or boost business growth without the constant need for new sales or new customers, and these rest largely on one key ingredient: innovation.
First, we should define this overused term.

Innovation does not refer only to new products or ideas but can apply to new ways of doing things, such as altering business models to better suit the needs of customers and staff or adapting processes to improve the end product or service.
All these things could, of course, help you sell more. But such innovations usually require significant time and financial investment before they become commercially viable — and not all “innovations” will prove to be successful.
But even failed innovations can bring rewards that can benefit your bottom line, providing extra capital that can be reinvested to fuel further business development.
It does this through two main vehicles — research and development (R&D) tax credits and Patent Box tax credits.
These two forms of government tax relief are designed to reward and encourage greater innovation across the UK business sector

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