THERE is no doubt that the past 18 months have been a period of extraordinary innovation. While the scientific community worked at unprecedented speed to produce not one but over a dozen approved COVID vaccines, much of commerce pivoted virtually overnight to a work-from-anywhere model.
The compulsion to innovate is a near-unstoppable force, it seems. Yet as we look ahead, the challenge must be to ensure this momentum is maintained, while protecting against rash decisions which could set us back. This could range from small tactical decisions, such as the work environment, to big-picture issues like strategy.
It is a time for action – to meet pent-up demand and unlock growth – but also for thought. Time to show that we can, as the saying goes, both walk and chew gum at the same time.
The result is Lenovo’s ‘Beyond Boundaries: Innovation for a changing future’ report, which seeks to understand the different focuses shaping innovation and distil some tangible lessons that are universal to businesses looking to re-build and grow.
The problem isn’t lack of talent or insufficient funding – it’s the challenge of bringing people together and making different approaches work over distances.
We also learned that:
- Businesses recognise the importance of diverse voices and perspectives to innovation, but there is more work to do before individuals can be feel truly comfortable at work.
- Disrupting a stifling, hierarchical culture is far from easy. Some leaders are still struggling to embrace a bottom-up working environment.
- There is a risk that business agility will be lost as firms transition back into the office or adopt a hybrid model that balances on-site and remote working.
Tellingly, for all the positive talk about risk-taking and innovation, many businesses remain wary of leaping into the unknown. Businesses err on the side of caution: six out of every ten companies (59%) say senior leadership often requests that an innovation is discontinued for being too risky or experimental. This rises to 70% in North America.
And what of the much-vaunted environmental impact of innovation? It seems that the bigger the company, the more likely it is to be using innovation to improve environmental sustainability.
Encouragingly, almost half (49%) of larger businesses say a key driver of innovation is to improve environmental sustainability.
Meanwhile 60% of larger businesses say the crisis catalyzed their efforts to use innovation to improve their social and environmental performance, compared with 54% of all those surveyed.
There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from this research – and not all of them will be easy to swallow. For example, senior leaders consistently said that they want to step back and let innovation flourish, but their subordinates suggest this is not always the case.
While diversity is a key driver of innovation, it helps to dress, talk, behave and otherwise “fit the mold” of what is expected in a traditional corporation if you want your voice to be heard. Above all, however, we heard the clarion call that businesses should leverage technology to build on the COVID-era atmosphere of openness and collaboration. – Aug 23, 2021
Varinderjit Singh is the general manager of Lenovo Malaysia.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
