Judging at the innovation showcase.
Judging at the innovation showcase.

Related articles

COMPANIES not known for their innovative clout would do well to take note of the results of the 2013 Accenture Innovation Index Survey.

The statistics show that the gap between highly innovative companies and the also-rans can be as high as 45% on some measures. The idea of the survey is not to knock any company, however, but to highlight where improvements can be made.

The World Economic Forum’s 2013-14 Global Competitiveness Index ranked South Africa as the 53rd most competitive country out of 148 surveyed, but this is not good enough — South Africa dropped one spot as cutbacks and slow growth dented opportunities. There could not be a better time for companies to sit up and take notice of where mistakes are being made.

The Accenture survey shows that high performers are leading the charge on innovation by managing innovation from senior leadership through to employees, fostering an innovative culture and offering financial rewards to all employees for great ideas.

They engage with employees to play an active part in innovation and encouraging participative decision-making processes, while rewarding employees for their innovative ideas across several dimensions, including career advancement and other opportunities.

A significant amount of annual revenue will be assigned by the high performers to the development of technologically new or significantly improved production methods or services, while also committing more resources to employee skills development and assigning higher contributions to socioeconomic development.

They deploy brand innovation impact measures, customer satisfaction measures and have a committed marketing communications strategy that measures the value of their company’s brand.

They also release products that are new to their market — giving their company a competitive advantage — and investments in innovation have translated into benefits for customers, stakeholders and shareholders.

Companies not making the grade, however, will operate base technologies and are not innovating beyond these. They are not accessing competitor intelligence to gain market insights and learn of emerging trends. The lagging companies are also reluctant to embrace new ways to generate ideas — according to the survey they largely rely on sources for innovation within the organisation, and do not use social media technologies to gather information.

Importantly, they do not have many employee reward programmes to encourage an innovative culture — fewer offer organisation-wide rewards and most companies do not have succession plans in place for core skill positions.

They contribute significantly less towards employee socioeconomic development and skills, and allocate less of their annual revenue to development of new or improved production methods. For those lagging behind, it will also be found that investments in innovation have not translated into benefits for customers, stakeholders and shareholders.

A passive approach to airing ideas is not going to work — true innovators need to be taking their ideas to market and making a splash.

Accenture therefore came up with the idea of having the top innovation concepts entered into the Accenture Innovation Index — game-changing products, services, solutions or processes which lead to enhanced stakeholder value — presented at a showcase on October 10.

Members of the public and venture capitalists could engage with the concept originators and evaluate the potential to extend the concepts to other industries or take small, medium and micro businesses to a new level.

Feedback from participants highlighted the value the showcase concept can achieve.

"One contact, in particular, stands out. I met with an intern from the Endeavor group who told me about the mentoring they do for businesses like ours to take them to the next level," says sales director at 1 Call ASAP Rhys Myrdal. "I was sent an e-mail the same day from one of her colleagues in Cape Town and she is coming in to see me. I also took time out to speak to some of the other exhibitors and found that some of the other concepts could work well with ours. I will be having another meeting with Notafy Smoke Customer Care Solutions to discuss an SMS solution.

"One of your judges, Dr Boni Mehlomakulu, came back to chat with me and asked me to contact her and Jeetesh Vanmare from Absa asked me to do the same regarding claims solutions by our contractors."

Director of industrial product marketing at First National Battery Ntsumbeni Mavhungu says: "Our miners cap lamp generated a lot of interest from campers and cyclists and some have proposed that we make the headpiece to somehow have a mechanism to fit the head or helmet without necessarily having to create a slot to hook the lamp."

According to Linda Trim, sales and marketing director at Angel Shack, the Innovation Awards were a great opportunity to come across many high level people out of the boardroom. " There was definitely a crossover between the nominees and it is great to know what is out there and refer business or opportunities on to others."

But what is needed to close the gap? According to Accenture, managing innovation across the entire organisation, fostering an innovative culture through their employees and offering financial rewards for great ideas is key. Companies also need to embrace new ways to generate ideas, innovative marketing tools and release innovative products into the market. Another pointer, among others, is to look to create jobs/ employment, and retain top talent, and be seen as an employer of choice.