The Hindu Business Line : <I>Combine knowledge in newer ways </I>

Ideas are what get businesses up and running. Continued growth and success of businesses depends on coming up with newer ideas, writes Manu Parashar in `8 Steps to Building Innovating Organizations,' from Response (www.indiasage.com) .

"Traditional view of innovation was restricted to R&D (research and development) department, or perhaps the marketing department". Such activity was episodic. Now, organisations find that innovation can happen continuously, and anywhere - `in products, in distribution, in administrative processes, in logistics.'

Innovation is all about combining various kinds of knowledge in a unique manner, defines Parashar. "The content of innovation is knowledge while the process is the combination of knowledge." He classifies innovation into four broad categories. The first is Kaizen, which uses teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles, and suggestions, for improving existing processes rather than achieve a specific goal.

Next is incremental innovation, where the overall product and process is improved, but the impact created on the target market is small. For example, Sony's Discman, though a new product, was only incremental to the Walkman concept, says Parashar. Third is the radical type, `a novel way of doing things that makes a step change from existing process, products or services', as in the case of iPod. And the fourth type is `breakthrough', which opens up `a whole new marketplace and/or a set of applications that were not envisaged before.'

A chapter on `innovation capability' mentions the example of P&G, which tries to unlock the knowledge of its nearly one-lakh employees using MyINet, an organisation-wide platform hosting `over 2 million research documents from P&G labs across the world'. The company has an interactive service called `Ask Me on MyINet,' for its staff to ask questions and get them answered. Also, `a team of technical entrepreneurs within the organisation' attend conferences, technical programs, and `work with universities and the Internet to identify and internalise knowledge that can further P&G's innovation goals.' One such goal is that 50 per cent of innovation `must have an external root to it'.

Parashar identifies three components in innovation capability, viz. knowledge, attitudinal and creative. The first is `the sum total of knowledge assets of the firm that determine its capacity to absorb and create new knowledge'. Dupont, for example, has a unit called University Compounds, which invites researchers to send in samples of molecular compounds they are working on.

In case Dupont finds them interesting, it offers to buy the compounds off the researcher. No wonder, says the author, that the company earns a third of its revenue from new products. Another example is of Infosys, which `places a premium on building knowledge pools across divisions and levels'.

Innovation can suffer in bureaucratic environments, please note. Which is why it is necessary to `keep auditing the attitude and discover fresh ways to drive it,' to preserve attitudinal capability.

Recommended read to shake off the status quo.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali

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