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HOW CAN YOU RELATE INNOVATION TO DEVELOPMENT?

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Question added by Samuel Loveday , Management Accountant , Mopheth Nigeria Limited
Date Posted: 2015/06/13
Vinod Jetley
by Vinod Jetley , Assistant General Manager , State Bank of India

First, an innovation strategy needs to be truly inspiring and should describe a desirable future state for the company.

This is a high bar as it rules out a single-minded focus on incremental add-ons to the business. Rather, it requires the organization to aim higher. You have probably often read in literature that the innovation strategy should be derived from the corporate strategy to clearly define how the organization sees opportunities for growth and makes explicit choices about the role of innovation, which is absolutely not wrong. Still, we think that to some extent it should be the other way around. Opportunities and possibilities formulated in an innovation strategy should actually provide input and shape the overall corporate strategy. Invention is done everywhere. In fact, the value that is derived for many large companies by scouting inventions, connecting the dots between many singular ideas and inventions into one big platform innovation and fully scaling it to maximize potential benefits.

Second, the innovation strategy needs to be ambitious in terms of providing the basis to break away from the competition, beat the competition, and create new spaces. Too many innovation strategies that we have seen tend to be “me too” (and mostly incremental). Even if executed according to plan, they fail to deliver the truly sustainable competitive advantages that can only be derived by performing above the overall market growth level and exceeding average profit margins.

Again, the innovation strategy should aim higher and help the company outpace anybody else in a contested space. If the so-called strategy does not seek to push those boundaries, the strategy in all practicality is probably just a product roadmap of business extensions, not an innovation strategy.

Third, the process of developing the strategy needs to be open. Open means bringing the outside in and working under the assumption that the other seven billion people on our planet may have insights that do not exist within a particular company’s boundaries. Even today this is something that many people find hard to accept. One client once joked: “We actually invented the not-invented-here-syndrome in our company.” Companies are settled into the way they innovate.

The statement above gives you a good idea of how hard it is for companies to open up and avoid merely settling.  At the same time, this should not be mistaken as an excuse for failing to come up with a great innovation strategy based on internal ideas and conviction. Being open is just a great way to raise the bar in terms of ambition and to more quickly get to more mature plans. By the way, as opening up the innovation pipeline is not just a matter of mindset, new technologies play an important role in making openness commercially feasible.

Fourth, an innovation strategy must also be specific to the time in which it is developed, as it is grounded in the reality of a company’s environment, and it reflects the available capabilities, technologies and gaps that may need to be filled. What do we mean by this? It is important to describe with great precision which specific innovation initiatives should be pursued, and where to invest and compete.

The innovation strategy also needs to explore possible market developments and scenarios while defining the most attractive market opportunities.

The innovation strategy also needs to explore possible market developments and scenarios while defining the most attractive market opportunities. The strategy should answer a number of questions like: What growth platforms represent the best chances for the company to win in the market? And, what is the rough business case per growth platform? This is the step where the overall risk related to the execution of the innovation strategy should be assessed in the context of the overall company situation. It is not by coincidence but due to the inherent uncertainty that venture capital funds place a portfolio of bets. Still, a corporation should carefully consider how many eggs to put in a single basket. But bear in mind – Mark Zuckerberg recently put it nicely: “The riskiest thing is to take no risks.” (Accompanying Letter to Investors to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Registration Statement,2012).

Finally, an innovation strategy needs to be adaptive and to evolve over time, i.e. incorporate learning, allow adjustments to the desired course and maybe even allow an organization to cut its losses if required. This typically does not fit with the classic annual corporate planning cycle. An innovation strategy and the respective execution should be capable of adapting the moment there are new insights, even if that requires moving in multiple directions to raise the aspiration you had at the beginning. After all, Rome was not built in a day. Likewise, innovation sometimes requires more time than originally estimated.

Innovation and development are directly related. Without innovation development is not possible.

Ibrahim Hussein Mayaleh
by Ibrahim Hussein Mayaleh , Sales & Business Consultant and Trainer , Self-employed

Looking at the posts of others, I have nothing more to add

We develop through innovation. We will stagnate if we are not dare to explore new innovations.

Chantal EL Saliby
by Chantal EL Saliby , Owner , Chantal design studio

nnovation is important at all stages of development; specifically, the creation and diffusion of technologies are important for economic growth and welfare across all economies. Different types of innovation play a role at various stages (e.g. in earlier stages, incremental innovation is often associated with the adoption of foreign technology). Opportunities for successful innovation experiments and a potentially different framework for development are emerging. Notably, these opportunities result from the rise of information and communication technologies, the development of global value chains, the increased importance of some emerging countries in the global innovation system, the growth of service-based economies and a greater openness to trade and foreign direct investment. Today a key challenge for innovation policy in emerging countries is to encourage inclusive growth and support research addressing major social challenges.

Innovation is a major ingredient of development because you cannot be doing anything the same way and expect different result. Thus, for development to come, innovatoive ideas, mindset, technique are precursors to development. For example, innovation can bring efficency, which is acheiving high level of output at reduced cost. It can also lead to effectiveness, which is achieving increased productivity at minimal time.

Kishor Vadher
by Kishor Vadher , Sales Manager , Hausstrom ltd. Lagos

Innovation is i think the term which express something new in present or to see different way the same thing and by that to accomplish or to work different on that which will be more effective than present one so it is different way to do the thing or different eye, where as development is totally new new eye to see the stimuli or to make the different way than present. If there is deficiency in society system or person or technology then it is discovered another way to live which will be much effective and win win situation to all.

Khaled Anwar
by Khaled Anwar , Senior Sales Engineer , "Automotive company''

I agree with Mr. Vinod excellent answer. Thank you 

RAJ DAHIYA
by RAJ DAHIYA , Senior MEP Projects Manager , Trinity Engineering Services L.L.C.

Endorse previous answers as answered well.

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