Tags
business management, business skills, business strategy, ICT, innovation, software economies, technology
Recently I attended an Auckland ICT Networking event where four focus group sessions were held with 44 Auckland-based high technology entrepreneurs and professionals.
All four groups discussed the following two open-ended questions:
- What are the three top priorities in your organisation in developing your capacity for innovation? and
- What stops you from doing more of each?
The results of the focus group discussions were presented at the event.
Results
The top priorities in organisations in developing capacity for innovation were identified as:
- Facilitation of management culture for ‘out of box’ thinking.
- Integrating plans for innovation into the budget.
- Generating sufficient revenues from current sales to fund product development activities.
- Adopting “Helicopter view” practice: stepping outside day to day operations.
- Interaction with customer.
The obstacles for doing more activities that develop companies’ capacity for innovation have been identified as:
- Traditional cost-driven management that does not allow for innovative culture within the organization.
- Insufficient market coverage causing insufficient revenues to support innovation.
- Lack of time and failure to allocate sufficient time for developing products.
- Ineffective execution of customer interaction process: focusing on designing the process rather than on doing things, i.e. getting outside and meeting customers.
- Failure to integrate innovation plans into the budget.
- Difficulty in getting product to the market associated with complexity of making sure customers understand the product and its benefits
- Difficulty in market penetration into international markets and understanding of local customer needs.
Interesting results – how have you overcome challenges in your organisation that have affected innovation?
