Accelerated, often disruptive change resulting in value innovation is the order of the day and the winner is the one who can do it better, faster and cheaper. Rewiring for innovation today means an organisation or an enterprise that is not just built for efficiency but one that can re-invent or re-model itself for value creation and growth.
Amid globalisation, technological advancement and oversupply, business success is becoming more elusive. Even when a certain measure of success has already been accomplished, enhancing it or merely maintaining it is tough.
So how does a corporation prepare itself for such a hostile landscape? The answer lies in a combination of factors. Nevertheless, one factor remains highly compelling – sustainable innovation and development which takes into account both commercial and social responsibility.
Over the past century, revolutionary inventions and innovations in the automotive, aviation, chemical, electronics, health and telecommunication industries, coupled with emergent business models such as franchising, multi-level marketing and e-businesses have created new wealth for the early adopters. Think of McDonald’s, Amway, Amazon.com, e-Bay, i-Pods, i-Tunes and Google which have effectively changed the way we live, work and play.
Today, we are in the era of innovation fuelled by the knowledge economy, spawning a slew of innovative products and services to gratify a highly discerning affluent consumer market. But at what price?
Although many innovative developments have raised our standard of living, some exert a detrimental effect on society and the environment over the long term. For instance, how will tobacco companies be socially and commercially responsible for the health effects and remedial costs associated with their products? How can our society of mass consumerism cope with the depletion of natural resources? How must governments and industries manage the disposal of used PCs, handphones, batteries and waste materials which pose potential hazards to the environment? Will profit-maximising corporations welcome the extra cost considerations of rehabilitation, treatment and disposal of the products they manufacture or consume?
From innovation to sustainable innovation
Sustainable innovation generates something of immediate value yet with the capability to cater and protect the future – both people and environment. For many large businesses, real sustainable innovation is “more likely to be about making day-to-day improvements in how the business operates in terms of people and process. And this in itself helps promote a culture of greater innovation within the business rather than enforcing innovation through paradigm shifts in product and service,” says John O’Hara, general manager of the Enterprise & Partner Group at Microsoft.
Research from the Centre for Innovation through IT (CIIT), conducted by consultancy Knowledge Partners, demonstrates that innovation can only happen within businesses if the business structure and the creative pool of talent within it are organized to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among staff.
The report also says that sustainable innovation occurs where companies invest in R&D to create new products or services that are better than those available in the marketplace. In contrast, disruptive innovation may bring cheaper, simpler and possibly inferior products and services to the market more quickly.
From an environmental perspective, sustainable innovation involves the development of eco-friendly materials, processes and products by commercially responsible corporations in order to preserve and protect our natural resources for future generations. There is now a global consciousness that sustainable innovation and development must take into consideration the long-term resulting effect and associated costs on society and the future generation.
Bringing sustainable innovation to your corporation
The following are some management insights for successful sustainable innovation, whatever the industry you are involved in:
Management Insight #1: Valued people create value, so value your people
The key to successful and sustainable innovation and its transformation into business value is your people. Therefore, invest in your people, encourage sharing and nurture creativity. Show them you believe in them and do not stifle their creativity by suppressing their need for achievement, reward and recognition. This includes taking care of practical matters, even the seemingly simple details such as wages, allowances, incentives, leave, celebrations and promotion.
Management Insight #2: Structure can increase or impede innovation, so get it right.
You may have the right people but not the right structure to empower or liberate them. Therefore, establish systems and processes that can tap into your people’s creativity and innovativeness. Don’t let hierarchy, bureaucracy and a so-called traditional mindset dissipate people’s spontaneity and sense of inquisitiveness to learn about and from one another. For instance, cut down formality so that employees feel at ease even when addressing a senior executive. Encourage people from different departments to interact. Enhance interaction through an open office concept with minimal physical and thinking barriers.
Management Insight #3: Create the right culture of openness – through leadership example.
The structure and procedures may be in place, but will your people share at a level that is deep or intense enough to stimulate, debate and generate ideas? Leaders must take the lead to promote a culture of openness and employee autonomy in which there are team workgroups, information sharing and cross- fertilisation of ideas. All should be prepared to discuss matters beyond the casual level so that the problem or subject area is thoroughly analysed and the resolutions identified. Most importantly, leaders must actively demonstrate a genuine tolerance for experimentation and mistakes – not just give lip service to it – and accept the risks when trying out new ideas and systems.
Management Insight #4: Wield people-centric technology, not process-centric technology, for sustainable innovation.
Leverage on technology to promote a culture where people are encouraged to be innovative in their jobs. However, if you are not careful, technology can backfire instead of being an enabler. Technologies that are large-scale and process-centric, aimed primarily at cutting costs rather than being people-centric, can dampen creativity and ultimately create barriers to user adoption rates.
Management Insight #5: Take accountability for commercially responsible innovation – it’s good business in the long term.
Long-term sustainable innovation and development must include commercially responsible innovation – how the innovation will impact on consumer behaviour, well-being, health and the environment. It includes the enterprise’s “end-to-end” product or service development approach which must take into account its creation and final disposal to ensure that the products and services do not create health or disposal hazards for future generations.
