Category: Technology and innovation management

Post 5: Various regulatory and environmental factors that shape the behaviour of enterprises

This is the 5th post on building technological capability. I have written many posts before on the environment in which innovation and technological capability development takes place, so this will only be a short summary.

In this perspective, we investigate how various regulatory and environmental factors shape the behaviour of enterprises. It combines the meta level (sociocultural) and macro level (generic framework conditions) of the systemic competitiveness framework (Esser et al., 1995).

Specifically, we seek to establish whether or not firms have to innovate through the incentives created in the broader environment. Firms’ innovative efforts are not usually the result of enthusiasm for innovation but the outcome of necessity – firms have to innovate because their competitors are innovating too, and because they will get forced out of the market if they do not innovate. In turn, this means that firms that are experiencing little competitive pressure will often not be inclined to put much effort into innovation, which is perfectly rational as innovation always involves cost and risk. It is important to note that the enabling environment is not only a function of different kinds of government policy, it is also affected by private sector policies such as decisions to collectively invest, collude and compete.

While some of these issues can be identified through desktop research, interviews with key industry leaders or experts will quickly reveal which socioeconomic factors affect the investment and experimentation appetite of the business sector.

A second dimension relates to the incentives for other actors in the system to support the development of technological capability in formal and informal institutions. For instance, national-level policies direct universities to offer particular kinds of courses, but do they provide the incentive for academics to develop teaching or research programmes that improves the capacity of enterprises or innovators?

Hint: I have learned that when interviewing entrepreneurs to understand their perspective on the innovation system (a.k.a the technological system) around them, never to start with the regulatory environment and the broader environmental factors. You will hear a million reasons why the whole system is conspiring against entrepreneurs to be competitive, innovative and optimistic.

Gaining a deeper understanding of an innovation system and how to build technological capability is not rocket science. I propose that you start with understanding the enterprise perspective on collaboration on competition first (post 1 and 2 in this series), then continue to better understand the relationship between formal education and the industry (post 3), then the creators and disseminators of informal and technical knowledge (post 2) and only then ask about the regulatory systems and the environmental factors.

In the end it is not about the presence of entrepreneurs, institutions that enable knowledge to flow, institutions that address persistent market failure, or an supportive framework conditions. While all of these matters, it is about how they interact. A checklist approach will not work. Having a university or a few innovative enterprises does not guarantee that a society or community has institutionalized technological capability. Technological capability is about the dynamism between these different factors, it is about relationships, spill-overs and trust. These are only created over time as a result of positive interaction between individuals, organizations, both formally and informally.

Post 4: Technological Institutions that disseminate knowledge

This is the fourth post in this series about building technological capability.

In 2011 I explained how we define technology in a broad way. This definition looks beyond hardware to include knowledge and organization of the different elements. For instance, if a company decides to achieve a new standard of compliance, that is seen as a technology. This technology involves the way processes are organized, the knowledge of how to achieve and maintain this new standard, and the physical and knowledge infrastructure involved in the enterprise.

Firms depend on a variety of public and private technology institutions in order to compete, innovate and grow. Examples range from access to basic research all the way to access to technical problem solving. The measurement, standards, testing and quality assurance (MSTQ) of a country is also assessed from this perspective. The density of interaction between various technology institutions, as well as the interaction between the firms and the technology institutions, is an important factor in the innovation trends in a sector. Various kinds of technical services such as knowledge-intensive business services play an important role in knowledge spill-overs between different firms.

We call all these carriers of technological knowledge “technological institutions”. While some of these institutions are publicly funded (like a research centre, national standards organization or an start-up incubator), some could also be privately funded (like a supply chain development office at a multinational, a specialized equipment provider that provides training and technical support, etc). Specialist and technical service providers, management consultants, researchers and manufacturing extension experts all fall under this broad category. Some charge full service, others provide public goods, but all disseminate knowledge to enterprises.

An organization like a Technology Transfer Centre hosted by a University is located between an Education Institution (post 3 in this series) and a Technological Institution, and often it behaves like both. The Technology Stations Programme in South Africa is an example of an institution designed to fit the space between technological intermediaries, universities and enterprises.

It is noticeable that in many developing countries, the technological institutions that disseminate technological knowledge and that makes scarce technology available to industry are weak or missing. While some stronger enterprises may require and be able to absorb more technological knowledge, the domestic institutions often provide generic services that do not meet the expectations of these leading enterprises. In middle income countries, leading enterprises may simply disengage from the domestic technological institutions and engage with service provided in other countries, further reducing the scale of knowledge dissemination and weakening the system further. This leads to a situation where most enterprises in the country only have access to generic and low-value services, while leading companies and multinationals connect with global sources of knowledge and technology.

You may be surprised to find out which organizations are identified by enterprises if you asked them where they receive technological and specialized knowledge from. I typically ask “who do you turn to when you get stuck?”. In most cases, equipment suppliers, engineers employed by larger companies, or a junior lecturer with high levels of enthusiasm are identified as the most important sources of knowledge or technological advice. I have found this same pattern in many countries, the most important carriers of knowledge are not formal organizations, but individuals.

The result is that the cost of finding knowledge, or gaining access to scarce technology is high, and that those with broader networks are most likely able to gain access to this important resource while those that depend on public goods or generally available information are unable to access the necessary information.

I will explain in a future post how we can diagnose and improve the domain of technological institutions in order to improve the technological capability of enterprises.

Series: Building technological capability

In the next few posts I will focus on building technological capability in developing countries. I am specifically thinking of Sub-Saharan Africa as I write these posts, but I am sure that some of the ideas will be relevant to my colleagues working in other parts of the world.

What do I mean with technological capability? We see technological capability as going beyond what firms can do, to what societies or parts of society can use or do with technology. It is a capability that is manifest in products and processes, but that arise from a capacity to match a problem or opportunity with technological systems, sub-systems or combinations of systems. This means that technological capability is not only about technological skills (for instance in knowing how to combine different technologies, or what the latest advances are), but also has business and networking skills to identify and recognize opportunities, discover what solutions can fit the context and constraints (like performance specifications, prices, volumes) and how to organize supply, delivery and maintenance. It thus combines all the elements of innovation including product knowledge (understanding components, sub-systems, architectures), process knowledge as well as business knowledge.

To build technological capability in a country or an industry is the result of an ongoing search process where networks of businesses, academia and government officials search for what is possible at reasonable value and margins, what can and what cannot be done within the local context. What can and cannot be done in the local context is a complex issue that is affected by four factors that I will briefly outline below. It is not only an engineering design problem, and it is not only about products and patents. It is not about a lack of knowledge or a lack of PhDs and engineering students. There are several things that must be worked on at the same time but a whole range of actors working towards different goals.

In many instances the public sector is more eager to develop domestic technological capability than the private sector itself. The private sector in Sub Saharan Africa is in most countries fragmented, and search costs as well as coordination costs at the level of products, processes and networks are very high. That is why those that can afford to take risks and that can afford to take a long term view will most certainly benefit disproportionately to those who are driven by short term profits. For instance, local manufacturers of components that invest very little to nothing in R&D cannot be expected to compete in the long run with international or regional competitors who are investing in R&D.

My late friend and business partner, Jorg Meyer-Stamer argued that there are four pillars [1] that technological capability is built on:

  1. The skill of the producers to imitate and innovate at product, process and business model levels. This is largely dependent on pressure to compete as well as pressure to collaborate with each other;
  2. The economic, political, administrative and legal framework conditions, which determine whether incentives to develop technological capability exist. In the past, it was often not recognised that these incentives do not exist in many developing countries, especially if an import substitution policy relieved companies of all pressure to be competitive or to innovate;
  3. Direct support by technology-oriented state institutions or specific types of knowledge intensive service companies – depending on the given development level, the competition situation and the characteristics of a technology branch in the given country. These organizations disseminate technical and expert knowledge between different actors, knowledge domains and industries and play a critical role in the use of and application of tacit and explicit knowledge;
  4. Indirect support by the public and private educational system; in addition to a sound basic education it is important that technical training of a suitable quantity and quality is available at the secondary-school level and also in the universities. The private sector often plays a role in short term training aimed at particular technology applications. Overall the responsiveness of the education sector in identifying and responding to changes in how technology is applied, developed or used in society.

The close interaction between these four pillars creates technological capability. Thus technological capability differs between countries and even within countries because the context differs. A single firm may in the short to medium term manage to get a sophisticated product into the market, but to sustain its position it will sooner or later need to tap into the education system, the knowledge networks of intermediaries and technology experts, or in supplier networks. Technological capability is not measured at the level of patents or products developed (this does not measure the system, it measures a single firm), but is best measured at the level of regional or international competitiveness of industries, entrance of new domestic and international competitors, and exports.

What developing countries fail to achieve is to crowd in many firms and industry networks by creating public goods that intensifies competition and that force firms to collaborate on critical issues like skills development, the development of industry specific infrastructure, etc. Despite being a big buyer in many countries, procurement patterns, priorities and performance criteria are not available to domestic producers (until it is too late). The education sector is mainly funded to provide basic and undergraduate education along strict disciplines, not to constantly upgrade the existing workforce to cope with technological shifts and the integration of different knowledge bases. Universities are funded to do research at a product or process level, not to do applied research that will modernize industries. The importance of various networks of technological intermediaries and knowledge providers are overlooked.

The private sector must also shoulder some blame. Industry bodies are often mainly focused on advocating for favorable conditions to protect existing investment or interests, not on increasing local supplier networks or building industries. Firms would often rather collude than collaborate. Industry associations are typically organized via traditional sub-sector structures, while global production is becoming more integrated, multi-disciplinary and application orientated.

In closing, technological capability is not only created through policy. It is not created through industrial or innovation policy, although it helps. It is not created by individual champion firms, although this certainly makes it easier. Technological capability is built as a result of an innovation system where the context matters. Firms able to manage their own internal technology and innovation are essential, but these typical arise out of public funded investment into technology intermediaries, management capability and the overall performance in the education sector. It is not possible to increase the technological capability of a group of firms in a particular industry without looking at the broader context where the four areas outlined earlier shape the outcomes in the medium to long term.

From my experience in assisting to promote technological capability in developing countries an ongoing facilitation effort funded by the public sector AND the private sector is needed to broker collaboration, but also to look at ways that local demand can be met by the broader system in the long term. In many countries and industries the best host for such a process is a technology intermediary attached to an university or a development programme, with a mandate to build networks around local opportunities that is not only about engineering, but also about reducing the costs of finding opportunities, suppliers and suitable technologies.

 

Notes

1 – These four pillars later became the foundation of the RALIS methodology that we use to diagnose and improve innovation systems.

Preparing for a different manufacturing future

In Africa, we face the challenge of a manufacturing sector that often manufactures products in low volumes. In a country like South Africa, we manufacture a wide range of products but often at low scale. Even our manufacturers that manufacture in larger volumes are still small compared to European or Asian competitors. In some parts of Africa we are further challenged by not having very sophisticated domestic demand in many sectors. When demanding customers are far away it becomes much more difficult to be innovative and well informed of what is possible and what can be done to exceed or at least meet the demands of customers.

But I can sense an important change taking place. I am frequently visiting manufacturers that are becoming much more knowledge intensive. They are smaller and more flexible than their more established competitors, and they combine different skills sets, technology platforms and knowledge bases.

In a forthcoming paper [1] that I co-authored with Garth Williams of the Department of Science and Technology and Prof. Deon de Beer (Vaal University of Technology), we offered the following definition of Advanced Manufacturing.

Advanced manufacturing is an approach that

  • Depends on the use and integration of information, knowledge, state of the art equipment, precision tooling, automation, computation, software, modelling and simulation, sensing and networking;
  • Makes use of cutting edge materials, new industrial platform technologies [2], emerging physical or biological scientific capabilities [3] and green manufacturing philosophies; and/or
  • Uses a high degree of design and highly skilled people (including scientific skills) from different disciplines and in a multidisciplinary manner.

We also argue that Advanced Manufacturing includes a combination of the following.

  • Product innovation: Making new products emerging out of new advanced technologies (including processing technologies).
  • Process innovation: New methods of making existing products (goods or services).
  • Organizational innovation or business model innovation: Combining new or old knowledge and technologies with traditional factors of production [4] in non-traditional fields or disciplines in unique configurations.

I am very proud that our definition of advanced manufacturing was also taken up by the Department of Trade and Industry in their next Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) 2014/15-2016/2017.

The implication is that our technology development, technology transfer and education programmes need to change in order to be better able to equip and support manufacturers. Manufacturers increasingly need to be able to manage multidisciplinary teams using different technologies. These manufacturers must not only be able to learn fast from the market around them, they must be harness and pro-actively develop new combinations of knowledge within their enterprise. Existing or potential manufacturers must also think differently about manufacturing. Smaller factories, using more modern equipment in a flexible way is now a competitive advantage. The entry costs for starting a small manufacturing enterprise has never been so low. For instance, the cost of an automated electronics surface mount production line has come down by more than 70% in less than 10 years. Additive manufacturing allows tooling and products to be developed in parallel, but also makes it possible to develop new products very fast.

Where do South Africa enterprises learn to become more knowledge intensive at the moment? The answer is: At European Trade Shows. If you are a manufacturer or a potential entrepreneur, start saving up. There are many excellent trade shows throughout the year.

Which Meso-organisations offers the best examples, technology demonstration and training on this? Again, European Universities, Technology Transfer centres and universities. (The US and Canada also provide brilliant services, but it is much harder to access for us). If you cannot find a local expert or academics to help you, reach up to Europe.

What do we have to do? Think of ways to get as many of our entrepreneurs curious or interested in the newer technologies available, and learn from our (larger) competitors. Also, we have to get our universities to be more involved in technology adaptation and participating in new research areas. The academia should focus less on publishing in journals and get involved in real research collaboration that gives our industries (exporting) opportunities and that at the same time address unique needs in our domestic markets.

Oh, and by the way. Start reading up on the “internet of things”. Maybe my next post should focus on that.

 

Notes:

[1]  Our paper will be presented at the International Conference on Manufacturing-Led Growth for Employment and Equality in Johannesburg on the 20th and 21st of May. The paper is titled “Advanced Manufacturing and Jobs in South Africa: An Examination of Perceptions and Trends”.

[2] Such platforms have multiple commercial applications, e.g. composite materials, and exhibit high spill-over effects.

[3] E.g. nanotechnology, biotechnology, chemistry and biology.

[4] Labour, materials, capital goods, energy, etc.

 

Assisting firms to improve their Research and Development activities

In my daily work I deal with two kinds of manufacturers: those who have formal or informal research and development activities, and those who don’t. While there are certain tendencies for some industries to be more R & D intensive than others, I found some very innovative firms even in traditional sectors.

The first step to assist firms to improve firms to depend their R & D activities is to disconnect R & D from product development that responds to complaints, suggestions or requests from customers. While in some firms product development is the result of R & D, in most, product development is not purposeful, pro-active or inventive. I am always surprised to realize how dependent many firms are on their customers for specifications, product or ideas, especially in more traditional industries.

So if you disconnect R & D from responding to customers product demands then what do you connect it to?
From my experience, I found that establishing a cross functional team within the organization that has a mandate to question anything, any process, any routine, or that can investigate any problem is a good start. Thus I try to connect R & D firstly with reducing internal costs, solving internal products, mastering existing technology and knowledge domains. The key is to get very different people together, not based on their rank, but based on their curiosity and different expertise.

Next step is to then start thinking about the science behind current products, processes and core assumptions in the firm. Are therw substitute materials, solutions or processes for what is used now in the firm? Can we create some experiments, or can we explore alternative ways to achieve the same results? The purpose here is not to successfully develop new products, but rather to broaden the knowledge used within the firm not only about is core processes, but also about alternative markets, applications and production approaches. If you are lucky enough to have a great team together, then you can even play with questions such as “what else can we make with what we have?” or “if we partnered with a firm nearby, what crazy stuff could we make together?” But, I am sad to acknowledge, this does not happen often.

Only when we have a core team in the manufacturer curious about different ways of doing things, different ways solutions are used, alternative ways of creating solutions – only then do we look at new ways of pleasing current and existing customers with innovative new products. At this point the firm is inquisitive enough to value conducting research into new ways of doing things. We are ready to consider how a more formal Research and Development approach might look.

REPOST: The difference between academic and industrial science

In the last 5 years I have posted my blog articles on the topics around my work. I re-use many of these articles in my ongoing consulting and training work. Below is an article that I originally posted on 20 August 2011. This is one of the popular posts on my blogsite that was posted before I had the current following.

For my frequent readers, please forgive my trip down the archives!

One of my favourite authors on the topic of science is the late John Ziman. Ziman played an important role in popularising science and its role in the technological evolution of societies.  

In his last book, Real Science, he made an important distinction between science in academia, and science in industry. This is relevant to me because I am assisting universities to conduct more relevant scientific research that will benefit industry. At the same time I am assisting industries to intensify their scientific research.

According to Ziman, academic science works towards the Mertonian norms introduced by Robert K Merton in 1942, also known as CUDOS. Merton advanced our understanding of the ethos of the scientific process. I like Ziman’s (2000) discussion of the Mertonian principles. CUDOS is as an acronym that denotes good academic research and stands for:

  • Communalism – fruits of academic science should be public knowledge (belongs to the whole scientific community), and the communication and dissemination of results are as almost as important as the research itself,
  • Universalism – researchers and scientists relate to each other regardless of the rank and experience of the researcher. The norm of universalism requires that scientific findings are evaluated objectively regardless of the status, race, gender, nationalism or any other irrelevant criteria,
  • Disinterestedness – academic scientists have to be humble and disinterested. Work is done in a neutral, impersonal and is often recorded in the passive voice. It disassociates with the personal or social problems, and focus on advancing knowledge or solving a very specific problem in an almost clinical way.
  • Originality – every scientist is expected to contribute something new to the archive, while building on the knowledge of predecessors. Unfortunately this also sometimes constrains how creative academic research can become. “new” could mean new data, questions, methods and insights.
  • Scepticism – This norm triggers important brakes on scientists, as it involves critical scrutiny, debate, peer review and contradiction before being accepted. It is important as it deepens understanding and knowledge from different research perspectives, and should not seen as being completely negative, rather it should be seen as being necessary.

 

Industrial science works towards what Ziman (2000:78-79) calls PLACE:

  • Proprietary – the knowledge is not made public (or at least as little as necessary is made public),
  • Local – it is focused on local technical problems rather than on increasing general understanding,
  • Authoritarian – Industrial researchers act within a hierarchy and must work to please senior management, in other words, it is not serendipitous,
  • Commissioned – it is undertaken to achieve practical goals rather than to just improve knowledge, and
  • Expert – industrial researchers are employed as expert problem solvers, rather than for their personal creativity and writing or teaching skills.

 

Ziman argues that when universities undertake contract research for industry, they somehow cross the boundaries between these two approaches to research. For instance, industry is more interested in solving a specific technological challenge and would prefer that senior researchers work on a problem. In the last 50 years it has increasingly become necessary for universities to raise 3rd stream income, so it a universally accepted practice that universities undertake research for and in cooperation with industry.  However, a university must prioritise the development of interns and junior researchers (and achieve other social goals). Furthermore, industry may not be interested in registering a patent (immediately), otherwise their secrets gets shared with the whole world. Academic researchers on the other hand, are expected to deliver publications when they cannot deliver patents or licenses, thus there is another conflict of their objectives. Perhaps a last comment is that universities are under pressure to solve social problems that are deemed “relevant” by prevailing political pressures, while industry prefer to solve problems that are immediate, relevant and that may even be in contrast with the desires of the prevailing political and social debates. Practically this means that at the moment industry may need to automate to remain competitive, thus incurring job losses, while government and the society may be demanding job creation for people with little or no technical education.

 

Universities must understand this tension, and must operate within and between different modes of conducting research. Current legislation perhaps assumes one standard approach to university research, that always results in something that can be published and or patented (licensed), and it further assumes that the value (and cost) or research is known at the time of start of the research or after completion. Practical experience indicates that this is not always the case. Sometimes the value of research only becomes apparent when it faces market forces.

 

Sources:

ZIMAN, J.M. 2000.  Real Science: what it is, and what it means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 ZIMAN, J.M. 2003.  Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

Innovation happens in a systemic context

I am preparing to conduct a 2 day training on diagnosing innovation systems. The participants will be mainly from universities, but there will be also some senior government officials responsible for promoting industrialization and R & D.

I already know what some practitioners will ask me. They will ask “why bother with an abstract concept like an innovation system if we can directly help enterprises to innovate?”

This is not a trivial question. Practitioners from universities that assist enterprises to develop new products, solve problems, conduct research or improve processes have direct evidence that their services are contributing to better results, new products, new markets; in other words, they are directly facilitating innovation.

However, helping one firm at a time is costly, and takes up time. While this kind of 1-on-1 support is necessary, it is not sufficient. Innovation is only to a small extent the result of isolated actions by producers and their technological intermediaries that support them. We need to recognize that there are many other facts that makes it more likely that whole industries, countries or regions will be competitive because they are innovative.

For industries, countries and regions to innovate, a more systemic approach is needed. It must be recognized that innovation rests on:

1. The interaction between companies, which include interaction with:

  • input suppliers,
  • equipment manufacturers,
  • competitors,
  • joint ventures,
  • alliances; and
  • demanding and sophisticated customers

2. The interaction between companies and their supporting institutions:

  • Education institution and training providers that are not only responsive, but creating the skills needed for tomorrow
  • technology extension that reduces the cost of experimentation and that overcomes high costs,
  • knowledge intensive business services and technical consulting services that adds value
  • Research and Development institutions and specialists that are accessible,

3. The framework conditions that determine:

  • the incentive to innovate (which is often related to the pressure by others to compete and try harder)
  • the direction of technical change
  • the overall market conditions domestically

4. The ability to leverage unique regional demand or sophisticated demand to create innovation eco systems

In Africa, we have to focus on using the unique regional demands placed on our industries, our products and our innovation systems. We have to use these unique demands to create supporting institutions, creative firms and specific products that responds to these needs. Because our domestic volumes are often low, we have to focus on making sure that we can better integrate different disciplines, technologies and knowledge bases. This will require much more than innovative products and innovative processes, but will demand that we also create innovative business models.

Conclusion

We have many examples of entrepreneurs who have (despite some very demanding local conditions) managed to create innovative products and processes that have been successful globally. The question we are trying to ask with an innovation systems approach is “how do we increase the chances of our innovators to be successful by creating a dynamic system around the entrepreneurs?”. We recognize that a creative entrepreneur or technologist is not enough to create a new momentum. The whole system around these entrepreneurs need to be dynamic and innovative in itself.

When we get institutions, experts and policies around entrepreneurs to be more innovative, we will immediately see results at the levels of firms, industries and regions.

Two links for your reading pleasure

Here are two articles for you to consider.

The first is an article by Thomas Fisher on Place-Based Knowledge in the Digital Age. Anyone working on local economic development, regional development and also technological innovation should take a look at this article. Thank you Liza for sharing it with me.

 

The second is an article by Edward Carr on the difference between innovation and technology in development. In my own words, his article highlights how the development fields focus on solutions might actually worsen the problems.

Let me know what you think.

Link: Why dont they want what we know they need by Charles Kenny

Take a look at this post by Charles Kenny at the Centre for Global Development about why people don’t absorb technologies that we know they need!

Is there a hierarchy of the different levels of innovation?

In my daily work I often switch between working on firm level issues about innovation to working on the more systemic level of innovation systems. My focus is mainly on the institutions that are trying to get whole regions or sub-sectors to uprgrade technologically. In other words, they want modernization of a particular sub-sector or region for a specific reason.

In the last few years I have noticed some patterns that explain why these technology intermediaries are not hitting their targets:

1) they focus mainly on the micro level of the firm, and don’t move to the innovation system level. Moving from one firm to many is not necessarily systemic or holistic.

2) an underlying assumption in many Technology Transfer or economic development programmes with an emphasis on technology is that the problem is that firms cannot innovate (for whatever reason), therefore agencies must innovate on their behalf. It therefore takes a very narrow perspective that innovation is about products or processes, and that technology is about hardware + training. It completely miss the point that innovations emerge from within a specific framework, and that giving a firm a new product on a platter is not technology transfer nor sustainable.

3) a third pattern is the assumption that improving innovation in industry is an engineering problem (see my post on what is meant with technology). It completely ignores that fact that an innovation system is a dynamic system that is mainly about how different economic agents interact, engage, share information, learn together, and remember (learn) what works and what doesn’t work. Freeman (1987:1) defined an innovation system as “the network of institutions in the public and private sectors whose activities and interactions initiate, import and diffuse new technologies.” The emphasis is mainly on the dynamics, process and transformation of knowledge and learning into desired outputs within an adaptive and complex economic system.

4) Innovation is somehow disconnected from creativity and creative thinking. Creativity in innovation is all about getting different people to think together. Maybe they agree, most often they don’t. But somehow they need to recognize constraints, threats, opportunities and then work from there. It requires some tension and often a lot of argumentation. It isn’t serendipitous journey. It requires strong leadership and a lot of guts. And it takes time.

Let me stop here.

Earlier in a post I have written about the different levels of innovation that are commonly identified as:

  1. Product or service innovation
  2. Process innovation
  3. Business model or organizational innovation
  4. Social or societal innovation

The funny thing is that everyone is focusing on helping firms to develop new products or maybe even a better process. Yet, the biggest obstacles to product and process innovation is not a lack of effort, or funding or ideas. It is complacent or outdated management, or perhaps business models that worked in another time but that has not kept pace with change. How often do we hear that someone we know or even a whole group quit a firm to start their own enterprise because management wouldn’t listen to their ideas?

Lets get practical. For example, large parts of our South African manufacturing sector is focused on the manufacturing of components designed somewhere else in the value chain. This is most likely explained by several factors including the concentration of corporate ownership in a few industrial holdings (a left over from sanctions and import substitution) and the presence of highly organized supply chains in many sectors like Automotives or electronics. Partial success in getting larger firms to compete internationally, combined with local framework conditions that inhibit the growth of small firms (for instance inflexible labour laws, collective bargaining, Black Economic Empowerment and a preference to procure through tenders) re-inforce this pyramid structure, with many component manufacturers at the base and product integrators (OEMs) at the top of the pyramid. The product owners dominates both their supply chain, the product architecture and the performance criteria. Most component manufacturers are squeezed both on their margin but also on the processes that they may use.

Are we getting things the wrong way around?

To help manufacturers to design new products and services is not entirely a bad idea, but this doesn’t address the systemic problem. We need business model innovation. We need new OEMs to emerge with new product combinations that draw on existing or easy to develop component competencies. Or we need some business model innovation where some traditional component manufacturers expand their business by manufacturing their own products. Perhaps we need some manufacturers to diversify horizontally, or vertically.

I have played with this idea with students in my classes, and almost all business model innovations will lead to interesting product, service and process innovations. However, we can generate long lists of product/service and process innovations that have not resulted in business model innovations. Partly because these firms cannot sell their new innovative products to their existing customers, they also need to diversify their markets which sometimes requires a completely different business approach.

To stimulate a sub-sector or a region to upgrade cannot be achieved only by helping one firm or a few firms at a time. Somehow we have to challenge management models, we have to help business people identify areas for management innovation. This will result in business model, process and product/service innovations that are self perpetuating; meaning businesses can do it again and again because their competence have increased. Actually, the best impulse into innovation is still modern management that is strategic not only about the internal dynamics of the enterprise, but that is also looking outside of the firm into the market place, at their collaborators, new technologies and their competitors. With firms that are aware of what is going on inside and outside the discussion about innovation is a fantastically creative discussion about what is possible or impossible, with the latter gives rise to very interesting discussions. But a firm that is under-managed or managed with outdated principles is very difficult to assist. Giving the latter group a new product, or taking them to a new market simply won’t do the trick.

Perhaps this is where creative destruction of Schumpeter comes in. Sometimes the only way to upgrade a sector is to allow enterprises with new combinations of management, ideas, products and processes to outcompete older more complacent firms. Hopefully some of the incumbents will at least be able to imitate the signals from the new entrants.

I propose a toast to business model innovation.