The challenge for companies to innovate
Ralf Haller
January 13th, 2010
How innovation is handled is of course quite different depending on which country you live in. To try out new things in China or India is so much more the norm than in industrialized countries like Germany, France, UK or - where we are based - Switzerland where long time existent processes demand to be followed and the need to do something new is not seen daily. There is probably only one place in the West where that might be different and that is Silicon Valley in California.
The success of any company largely depends on how much better they can bring new or improved things to the market. This is not a sole function of product management and R&D in product and service innovation though but actually of everybody in a company since there are so many touch points with employees, clients, partners, products, services etc. that can be improved and lead to competitive advantages.
In fact I am convinced that the future in about just any industry in light of the strong competition from Asia and here of course in particular China is how well one can motivate and leverage each employees know-how and skill towards a joint goal: innovating better and faster. Innovation has to be seen in a broader sense here encompassing all company functions but of course products and service innovation are key since they pay the bills.
But as it turns out in day-to-day business these improvements, ideas or innovations are difficult to collect and often even difficult to create in many in particular big companies. So how could one revive or jump start an internal process that leads to a culture where people love to come up with new ideas? Before being able to answer such a question I collected some of the reasons why it is difficult for so many companies to innovate, here are some:
- there is simply no time set aside for employees to collect ideas or even communicate them
- there are no or only hardly achievable incentives defined in case someone has a nice idea
- how decisions and new products/services are created is a non-transparent process and only clear to a few
- hierarchical barriers make it difficult for lower ranked employees or departments with less visibility to communicate ideas up, one might simply not listen to them
- innovation is in the hands of a few so called experts and not a grassroots motivated approach
- being wrong with an idea does not mean that was bad, in contrary it needs to be made clear that it is much better to be wrong many times trying than not proposing anything at all, unfortunately too many companies are still not encouraging to try out something new
- there are no software tools available on companies and made part of every employee’s work tool that foster an innovation culture
This is a very small list. A bigger (50) and more comprehensive, also with a positive angle, list you can find here: 50 WAYS TO FOSTER A SUSTAINABLE CULTURE OF INNOVATION.
Tags: innovation culture, social communications, social networking