There has never been a better time to use innovation as the springboard for better business practices and products
Based on a recent survey of executives at North American companies, the primary business environment factors shaping innovation and product development strategy are the increasing need for product or service innovation (48% of survey respondents) and the global economic downturn (33%). Other business environment factors identified were increasing demand for green or sustainable initiatives (25%), intensifying competition (24%) and emerging global markets (20%).
Dr. Anshuman Khare, professor of operations management at Athabasca University’s Centre for Innovative Management, suggests that the current global economic conditions are a huge driver for innovation. Khare has been studying the global automotive sector and attributes the new ideas currently being integrated into car and truck manufacturing to the external economic and environmental pressures being brought to bear on the industry. “Look at car manufacturing in this new world – what they were doing even five years ago is now outdated. The world has changed because of the financial crisis. It is forcing companies to think about new products and processes,” Khare explains.
“Traditionally defined productivity has shifted to include better resource utilization,” Khare adds. “Companies are now considering how to be more energy efficient, how to conserve material, how to maximize opportunities. For example, we are beginning to see manufacturers think in reverse direction. They are both manufacturing and demanufacturing, that is to say, they are now considering how and if they need to take back their product – a reverse supply chain. They’re considering how to dismantle their products and take them back to raw material stage for repurposing. A couple of years ago, Nike came out with a shoe they called Trash Talk, made from manufacturing waste from the factory floor and a sole made of ground-up rubber from a shoe-recycling program. It made people think.”
Another example of applying innovation to waste products comes from a company closer to home. Titanium Corporation is developing technology to recover heavy minerals and bitumen contained in the waste tailings streams from oil sands mining operations in northern Alberta. Titanium’s mission is to develop and build a commercial process that will maximize the inherent value existing in the waste material currently being deposited in oil sands tailings. The recovery of valuable minerals and additional bitumen from tailings offers an opportunity to both address important environmental concerns and find new revenue streams in costly waste products.
“Development of new technology that will reprocess an otherwise discounted waste product will add value to the bitumen resource and provide a number of environmental benefits such as reduced carbon dioxide emissions and smaller disposal areas,” says Scott Nelson, president and CEO of Titanium Corporation.
Ultimately, Titanium’s processes could see an abundance of manufactured products including ceramic tiles and kitchenware, consumer electronics, medical appliances and paints using minerals extracted from oil sands tailings. Rather than channeling mine froth tailings into disposal areas, the mineral-rich stream would be sent to a separation plant via pipeline where bitumen, titanium minerals, zircon and naphtha would be recovered for commercial use. More than 90% of the world’s titanium minerals are sold to the pigment industry, which manufactures products for the paint, coating, paper and plastics industries. Another important use of titanium is in making alloys. Zircon sand is in high demand worldwide and is used by the ceramic, refractory and chemical industries. Naphtha, a liquid hydrocarbon, may also be recovered through the research project and reused for processing bitumen prior to upgrading.
Dr. Khare is enthusiastic about the current conditions for innovation. “For someone who is an entrepreneur and wants to get into market, it’s a fantastic time, with new opportunities. Look at the carbon capture and storage initiative and the new technologies it will spur. We need to challenge ourselves to understand what innovation is in today’s environment. Then we will start to see the opportunities to create new businesses or new products.”
Definitions of Innovation
Innovation in business can be defined in four distinct ways. These are known as novel thought, extension, duplication, and synthesis.
- Novel thought is true creativity. It is developing a product or service based on no previous similar product or service.
- Extension involves extending one’s current boundaries of knowledge by looking at what is happening outside of your industry or profession and extending on this new found knowledge to arrive at innovation solutions to grow your business.
- Duplication involves adapting into your business approaches that work elsewhere.
- Synthesis is the process of collecting data from a variety of sources and integrating it in a way that provides an innovative solution to your own business growth.
Seven Characteristics of an Innovative Workplace
Companies we would all recognize for their innovation – Apple, RIM, GE, Google – are all also noted for the culture of innovation they have fostered. Is your company encouraging every employee to bring their innovative best to the workplace? Here are seven characteristics of an innovative workplace; see how you measure up:
- High levels of open and transparent communication between employers and employees
- Advanced information and consultation arrangements
- Greater emphasis on team working and team building to tackle business challenges
- Support for workplace learning and staff development across all levels of the organization
- Performance-management systems that acknowledge and reward workplace activities which foster employee participation and involvement
- Leadership and management capacity to harness employee input for the effective management of change and fostering of innovation
- Well-developed equality and diversity strategies
In short, workplace innovation is fostered in an environment in which creativity, knowledge and experimentation are actively encouraged and rewarded.
The Innovation Engine
Innovation is a critical component of productivity improvement. But innovation is more than fancy new technology. In fact, 80 per cent of innovation stems from ideas, methods, products and processes, so it’s not necessarily expensive to pursue
