What does “innovation” mean to you and your organisation? When people talk of innovation, many assume that it requires a huge effort to be creative and to turn those creative concepts into practical applications. If you are one of the people who think like that, then keep reading as this article is going to change your perspective.
It is true that creativity is critical for any organisation to become successful, but being creative doesn’t really mean being innovative.
Innovation is the process of creating, developing and commercialising ideas. In other words, general ideas will remain mere ideas, not innovations, unless they can be commercialised and deliver a return to the bottom line of the organisation.
Given the emergence of new technologies in the past two decades or so, many people believe we are now in the golden age of innovation. However, in reality, research shows that many organisations still lack understanding about innovation, let alone the ability to actually be innovative.
APMGroup has conducted research and identified four essential pillars for commercialising great ideas into innovations as follows:
1. Start with the end in mind by identifying and targeting growth opportunities, attractive markets and segments on which you would like to focus your innovation. This will essentially drive healthy portfolios of product development that support strategic growth.
2. Innovation execution doesn’t happen by accident. Effective and applied processes reduce risk, save resources (time, money, manpower), kill bad ideas, and bring quality products to market faster as they target only high-potential ideas.
3. Leaders play vital role in building a culture of open collaboration around ideation and neutral, consistent rigour around innovation governance and processes.
4. Managing multiple innovation projects can be time-consuming and confusing. Enterprise innovation management systems are available that provide at-a-glance dashboards of product and portfolio status. These systems can transform your team from administrators to innovators and in turn let your workforce do their jobs more efficiently.
Besides these four pillars, another important factor in building innovation in your organisation is to listen to the voices of customers. After all, they are the ones – not the boss, not the manager, not the CEO or the MD – who judge whether products or services become successful or not. In other words, products or services that are paid for are guaranteed as being valuable to the organisations since they can be commercialised.
Innovation is one of the most discussed topics in modern business as many consider it an “add-on” or an “assistive factor” for business survival. This is to say, every product and service has its life cycle and inevitably it will expire one day. Thus, innovation that leads to the development of new products and services is considered essential for sustaining business, especially amid unstable economic conditions and increasingly demanding markets.
In short, an innovative organisation is not just a fancy idea; instead, it is a practical approach as long as your organisation pays attention to it and puts in place the four pillars mentioned above, along with the leaders’ dedication.
After reading this article, ask yourself whether your organisation is being innovative or not. And ask yourself as well whether your organisation has the ability to transform mere rocks into diamonds.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand’s leading Organisational and People Development Consultancy. For more information, write an e-mail to arinya_t@apm.co.th or visit www.apm.co.th