29 May 2008
Response to NESTA report calling for 'Total Innovation'
We welcome NESTA's call for 'Total Innovation', the report
recognises that true globally leading innovation requires much
broader thinking, encompassing human skills, economic dynamics,
political and international factors and most importantly, how
technology impacts all of these. We can no longer consider
innovation as an incremental or "non-core" activity, hidden away in
R&D with the scientists or held at a safe distance in new
product incubators rather like some form of communicable disease.
This is often justified by the board as a means to minimise risk
but is perhaps more an acknowledgement of a lack of information and
understanding of how to manage it. The risk of change in
the global market is, however, markedly less than the risk of NOT
changing.
New technology and new international markets, even with existing
customers, usually require completely different organisational,
marketing and business models and yet many companies continue to
control and segment their activities and staff in ways that match
the market of the 70s. Such boundaries in teams and
responsibilities inevitably leads to incremental steps and failure
due to an inability to break through an unsustainable compromise to
profitability.
Non-incremental thinking requires structures, individuals and
teams of people (including the board) with the ability to
synthesise and translate all the factors simultaneously into a
unified assessment of the risks and rewards, to make the decision
and to deliver the plan.
The UK is woefully lacking in these technology and
innovation translators; those that can speak the language of both
technology and business. The report has highlighted that innovation
is not only being impeded by a lack of people with STEM skills, but
also because these skills are rarely fused with business knowledge.
What's more, people in technical and creative roles are currently
operating in silos, divorced from participating in the marketing,
strategic, or financial decisions. These elements of the business
model cannot merely be applied like a veneer, hermetically sealing
the dangerous change inside, as they all are integral to the
success of NESTA's vision of 'Total Innovation'.
Technical experts are facing a glass ceiling in UK plcs, through
lack of business skills - this is seriously impairing our ability
to compete with countries such as China and India where the
traditional and specialist skills based - organigram locked -
industrial structures have never developed and been
institutionalised. As the report highlighted technical experts need
to broaden their skill base - firms need to nurture management,
marketing, leadership, change and project management skills across
technical experts, otherwise theUK will not be able to
effectively compete internationally.
SMF was set up over twenty years ago to bridge the gap between
technical and business knowledge; we have been campaigning
for UK companies to equip their technical experts with
the necessary business skills.
