Managing Innovation

Business Coach

Open innovation in India

Are Indian companies ready for open innovation?
http://www.blog.ideaken.com

Jayesh Badani, ideaken Pte. Ltd., Singapore

personal intellectual capital in a global context, and connectivity is providing insight into the markets with buying powers in turn, making Indians an irresistible choice for companies hungry for brainpower. So does this mean Indians are turning the table around on the innovation front? The answer is not yet. Indians are highly social and love to share; however, they shy away when there is a probability of failure, specically in a non-business environment like creativity and innovation. Though innovativeness of Indians is not disputable, I am specically pointing to the volume and the impact density. The pace at which the knowledge economy is growing, however, clearly indicates that a certain percentage (which accounts for quite a volume) is moving to the next orbit and becoming hard core innovators. Not to forget a Jugaad mindset which has produced millions of innovations in India over the years. With the market needs beyond Jugaad there comes the supply beyond Jugaad. There is a huge opportunity lining up for Indian innovators both globally and locally. And the innovators who open up to the collaborative innovation will nd themselves rewarded both intellectually and monetarily.

Multinational companies which are making India their second home have brought in the culture of open innovation here. Companies like Xerox, P&G and General Mills are already perusing open innovation aggressively in India. Indian companies like Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra, Future Group and Biocon are not far behind and are already engaging with employees, vendors and customers to co-create. While companies in the west suffered from Not Invented Here syndrome and are working to get over it, many (not all) Indian companies suffer from Why Invent syndrome; good news isit is a declining tribe! There is a bigger shift in the making. With the worlds focus shifting to Asia, the responsibility of getting innovation done is also tagging along. And when that happens, local companies are joining the bandwagon for competitive reasons. In addition, Open Innovation in Service industry and benets of incremental innovation are getting quite an attention for ROI reasons. Some select Indian companies are quick to realize that there is a lead time needed to get into the culture of open innovation and co-creation. Companies with this foresight probably will dictate the landscape of domain leaders and the followers in this decade.

Are Indian innovators ready for open innovation?

Over the years, Indians have becoming more aware of their

National Innovation Council

India has set up of a National Innovation Council (NInC) to discuss, analyse and help implement strategies for inclusive innovation in India and prepare a Roadmap for Innovation 20102020. NInC is the rst step in creating a crosscutting system which will provide mutually reinforcing policies, recommendations and methodologies to implement and boost innovation performance in the country. The NInC will act as a platform to facilitate this engagement and collaboration with domain experts, stakeholders and key participants to create an innovation movement in India. The aim is to herald a mindset change and create a push at the grassroots level so that more and more people in education, business, government, NGOs, urban and rural development engaged in innovative activities are co-opted and are part of shaping the national level innovation strategy. For more information, contact: National Innovation Council, Ofce of Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations, Room No. 125, Yojana Bhawan Parliament Street, New Delhi-110001, India Tel: +91-11-2309-6622, E-mail: ofcepiii@nic.in Web: http://www.innovationcouncil.gov.in

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TECH MONItOR Jul-Aug 2011

Business Coach

Managing Innovation

Innovation in Thailand
http://www.talent-technologies.com

Talent Technologies (Asia) Co., Ltd., Thailand

The drive towards operational efciency has created companies that attract clones of a narrow talent set who nd the structure operational efciency creates as desirable. However, this has also created an us and them scenario where a whole companys corporate culture becomes identied with this talent set leading to anyone no tting in to the talent set are also seen as not being able to t in to the companys corporate culture thus leading to the silent genocide spoken of earlier.

If your company wants to promote greater innovation in Thailand and across Asia, this recent IBM survey of 1,541 chief executives gives some indicators as to whats required. With feedback from more than 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, the message is clear: more creative people are essential for companys future success.

Time for the creatives?

The last 20 years has seen a management super-cycle of efciency, operational excellence and inside out focus. Getting these factors right have propelled some of the worlds biggest companies to their biggest prot margins ever. But with global instability looming, is that all about to change? The IBM study seems to suggest so. Instead of hiring leaders who more naturally drive operational excellence, companies need to hire those who are customer focussed and creative. Innovation, not operations, will be the source of competitive advantage going forward. But this is easier said than done. The challenge many companies face is not only that they have emphasised the more operational aspects of their businesses, but, more alarmingly, that they have turned their businesses into a place where many creatives do not want to work. In other words, in their drive for cost leadership and process implementation, a long process of creative genocide has taken place, depriving these companies of being more innovative and customer-centric any time soon. Its the people, not the words, that matter. The team, not the strategy. Or, as Jim Collins put it in Good to Great, First Who, then What.

What companies can do now

To change this, companies need to become a whole lot better at understanding the nature of talent, identifying it, and helping their people to identify it. This will blow away many of the talent management blind spots that exist. Doing so also hugely promotes engagement as this one factor is considered by Gallup to be the #1 employee engagement driver with clear links to team and nancial performance. Having done this, companies then need to communicate the importance of hiring on talent not individual preference (noncreatives tend to regard creatives with mistrust as this article has shown), with an emphasis on attracting more creatives. They need to create an employee value proposition creatives will nd attractive. And they need to engage creatives with a greater focus on customer engagement, not the bottom line. These factors will dramatically help companies retain more creatives, innovate more effectively and meet the challenges described in the IBM study. The rst step is giving your people the capability to identify talent. One highly effective way of doing that is through the worlds only objective talent identication tool the Highlands Ability Battery details of which can be found following the link below.

ASEAN SME Innovation Award 2011

ASEAN plans to identify 20 SMEs for ASEAN SME Innovation Awards, by way of promoting SMEs within and beyond the region. Each AMS are requested to nominate 5 most innovative SMEs in their respective countries. The identication of the ASEAN SMEs Innovation Awards formed part of the work plan under the strategic plan for achieving the Promotion objective. A common eligibility criteria is available for consistency purposes among ASEAN member states (AMS) and to enable ease of selection of Innovative SMEs. However, due to the diversity of SMEs among the member states, AMSs have the liberty to set their own national selection criteria to nominate their respective SMEs for the ASEAN SME Innovation Award. For more information, contact: Ms. Endah Srinarni, E-mail: endahsn@yahoo.com, endahsn@depkop.go.id

TECH MONItOR Jul-Aug 2011

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