Innovation - the key role in a company's success

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

Prof. Rowan Gibson

Innovation should be the number one priority strategy in a company to gain success. The factors that are necessary to make innovation an enterprise capability are leadership and structure, people and skills, processes and tools, culture and values. It is also important to build and sustain enterprise capabilities in innovation, Global Business Strategist, Best Selling Author, Expert on Radical Innovation Prof. Rowan Gibson told the two-day National HR Conference 2009 which concluded yesterday at the BMICH.

"We can drive innovation to the core of an organization and thinking out of box will have a positive impact. Developing physical innovation centres and encouraging ordinary employees to innovate will go a long way. In the new role of HR in the innovation economy the key competitive weapon is not quality, but innovation," he said.

Innovation could be used in promoting, developing the principles and practices of human resources management and to ensure optimum utilization of human resources in organizations. What companies need is not merely a pro-innovation mindset or better brainstorming techniques or 'hot teams'. The challenge is not about coming up quickly with a few new products or services to get the sales curve moving upwards. It's about making innovation an "all-the- time, everywhere" capability - a new corporate way of life, Prof. Gibson said.

Innovation is about making it deep, systemic and self-sustaining embedding it as a core competence in an organization. It's about infusing the entire lifeblood of an organization with the tools, skills, methods and processes of radical innovation.