Tools for Enhancing Innovativeness in Enterprises

Abstract

If the enterprises of the Third World are to survive intense competition and thrive in a globalized economy, they will have to go beyond importing Western and Japanese technologies and management models to innovation. Rapid and widespread induction of structured management tools imported from the West and Japan may raise the operating standards of these enterprises but may not translate into superior financial performance because they would not confer competitive advantage vis-a-vis domestic competitors that also have inducted the same tools. Besides, there may be cultural and other impediments to their effective institutionalization. Innovation is a superior option because it is homegrown and confers the first mover advantage. If the enterprise learns to be innovative so that it can generate a continuing string of successful technical and managerial innovations, it can garner sustainable competitive advantage and grow and thrive even in a hyper-competitive environment. Innovation is applied creativity and, therefore, the principles of creativity need to be kept in mind in seeking to be innovative. Innovation can come in a great variety. Most innovations have three characteristics: they are executed in the face of much uncertainty; they have economic implications; and they have a political dimension. These aspects make the management of innovation quite challenging. The major blocks to enterprise innovativeness are internal: conservative and bureaucratic cultures and structures, communications problems, and administrative inflexibility. In enterprises that have grown up in conservative cultures and protected economies, the required mindset change in the stakeholders can be daunting. As a first step to stepped up innovativeness, an organizational design needs to be adopted that is innovation friendly. Such a design is briefly outlined. A number of management tools can enable the enterprise to leapfrog to a much higher plateau of innovativeness. Sixteen tools are briefly discussed with real life applications. They are: creativity training; innovation training; creativity thinking network; creative scenario building; creative surveys; creative experiments; creative benchmarking; reverse brainstorming; exnovation; multiplication of change agents; kaizen; creative overload; data mining; stakeholders' councils; intrapreneurship; and parallel groups. These tools deliver a number of value propositions and facilitate: an innovationist mindset in the organization a ‘stretch’ vision of the future that can spur innovations vital intelligence that stimulates innovations dumping of obsolete activities that creates space for changes and innovations widespread change and innovation throughout the organization continuous improvements and innovations high potential new innovation leads ‘breakthrough’ innovations. In conclusion, the author suggests that becoming much more innovative is a high priority for the Third World enterprises. It is also suggested that the organization design that facilitates innovations and management tools that help an enterprise generate a continuing stream of successful innovations need to be incorporated into the core of management curriculum.