The biggest problem facing many Kiwi businesses is mediocre productivity... and the number 1 driver of productivity is INNOVATION
Productivity | Innovation & Culture | Intellectual Assets
Strategic Innovation helps firms optimise their performance
and realise their full potential by strategically managing their innovation processes
to optimise performance. The innovation process involves everyone
and takes place everywhere. It is the process by
which organisations remain competitive and grow their products, processes, markets,
distribution channels and business models.
Kiwis are known for their inventiveness and that should make our businesses highly
productive and profitable and New Zealand a very prosperous nation. That most Kiwi firms
struggle with their productivity, profitability is nothing special and New Zealand’s economic performance mediocre s has been a perplexing puzzle. Forté management's research and practical experience in business, management and economic development provides important new answers to that puzzle.
The innovation process has many stages but the two most important are initiation and implementation that roughly correlate with creativity/invention/discovery and innovation respectively. The words "invention/creativity/ discovery" and "innovation" are often used interchangeably. But the two are not the same and mixing them together just causes confusion. Creativity is about coming up with novel ideas while innovation is about "bringing ideas to life." New Zealand firms are generally much better at invention/creativity/discovery than innovation.This distinction is not clear-cut but it is important – especially for New Zealand firms.
According to Forte management’s research, New Zealand firms appear to have a conversion problem. We struggle to convert the legendary inventiveness into business productivity and profitability and national prosperity. Creativity doesn’t automatically turn into profit. And a firm can be innovative but not creative by adopting creativity that takes place elsewhere. Kiwis typically are more motivated by the thinking and behaviours associated with the initiation stage and that means Kiwi firms are better at or focus more on the initiation stage. Conversely, less motivation and satisfaction is derived from the implementation stage where ideas are captured, evaluated, developed and adopted or commercialised, and where value/profit is created. [Click here to learn why New Zealand businesses are better at initiation than implementation].
That’s especially important for New Zealand firms where often there are truckloads of hands-on problem solving and creativity going on. But many organisations aren’t sure where innovation fits into their business model or strategy and how it relates to their performance and what priority it should receive, especially in difficult economic times. Others recognise the need to be more innovative but aren’t sure where to start. New Zealand businesses often leave innovation to chance and fail to have the processes to recognise, capture, develop and commercialise that creativity.
That means it’s really important to play to our strengths – more important possibly than for businesses in any other nation. Helping firms recognise their strengths and their opportunities and building strategies to create and harvest maximum value is the service that Forté management provides to your firm.
One of the greatest opportunities available to Kiwi firms is to create and capture value from their intellectual assets. According to Standard & Poors and Intellectual Assets Magazine, intellectual assets represent up to 80% of a businesses value. Value that never appears on your balance sheet, rarely in management plans, and hardly ever in your bank account. Intellectual assets are all the knowledge, production and quality systems, designs and the like, whether registered or not, that are used to transform physical and financial capital into products and services.
Forté Management helps businesses identify their intellectual assets, analyse their importance, their resilience in the face of compromise or loss, their development potential, protection options, and then develop and implement the intellectual assets strategy.