Business Advice

The Currency Of Innovation And Creativity

By Robert Rawlinson, Chief executive, De Bono Foundation UK

"Ideas are the currency of success, they separate you from your competition."
Dr Edward de Bono


Innovation Opportunities

According to the British Chambers of Commerce the British economy is increasingly dependent on knowledge for wealth creation. The government's white paper Innovation Nation sets out the government's desire to promote knowledge through innovation across all aspects of the economy. Innovation is as important to public services as it is to business. It is seen as essential to the UK's future prosperity and as being able to solve some...

...of the biggest issues faced by Britain today such as the credit crunch or climate change. This throws out an exciting challenge to all companies but if you consider that 64 per cent of commercial innovations come from small firms the size of the prize is great for Britain's smaller businesses.

But how can small business tap into and maximise innovation opportunities? Firstly it is important to understand what is meant by innovation. The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) describes it as "the successful exploitation of new ideas" and "the key business process that enables UK businesses to compete effectively in the increasingly competitive global environment." Innovation should be seen as a systematic process for finding new ideas, refining them and taking them through various stages to completion. Innovation is critical to create new, added value products and services.

Innovation should permeate every business function from HR to R&D and relies on having the right culture but the failure rate for new ideas is high. Less than ten per cent of proposed innovations get to market, and of these, less than ten per cent actually succeed. ... continued on page two >

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