Friday, July 18, 2008

Innovation - the new corporate mantra!!!

Creativity Vs Innovation ?

What are creativity and innovation? There are several definitions. Often they are not distinguished. They are simply seen as part of the process by which knowledge is developed and transformed into business value or even as a business. this is a perfectly acceptable definition but like the failure to differentiate between information and knowledge - it is not very useful for practical purposes.

A more useful approach is to view creativity as the process of generating ideas whilst seeing innovation as the sifting, refining and more critically - the implementation of those ideas. creativity is about divergent thinking. Innovation is about convergent thinking. Creativity is about the generation of ideas and innovation is about putting them into action!!!.

Creativity - coming up with new ideas - is not enough. we need innovation - the taking of new or existing ideas and putting them into action. This requires the application of existing knowledge and the development of appropriate new knowledge. Coming up with new ideas is the food of innovation. innovation is a far tougher proposition than creativity.

Why it is so important in corporate world ?

Daily we read in the news that creativity and innovation are critical for an organization's success in maintaining its competitive advantage and in surviving. many surveys identified creativity and innovation as a "top two priority for business strategy". A recent survey of 500 top CEO’s in USA asked them what their organizations needed to survive in the 21st century. Top answer was "to practice creativity and innovation"!!!!!

We all are entrepreneurs..(Yes..believe me Very Happy)

Who is an entrepreneur??? - A dynamic person who gets the right people together to make something happen.someone who knows the right people, can motivate and wants action / results on a daily basis as in a typical IT project. we all are entrepreneurs means, we are working in such a large corporation takes direct responsibility for turning a project requirements into a profitable finished work product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.many entrepreneurial qualities of us often loose their innovative edge as they grow into such an established environment.It is therefore recommended that business organizations create a culture that provides employees with both freedom and encouragement to develop new ideas


Why the Management system?

There is no magic bullet for successful innovation, but nurturing a corporate culture that values innovation and creativity is important.that depends our corporate culture and what target we set for growth. But first of all we need to put innovation on our agenda, start by designing an idea management system.

The real challenge for our organization may not be finding a way of getting people to come up with ideas, but finding the best, most practical way of tracking and implementing those ideas. More than one hundred years ago the first traditional employee suggestion system -the suggestion box was introduced around the world. the suggestion system has had it ups and downs( we've experienced it already), but today it has developed into a powerful tools as a method to encourage, nurture and acting on employees ideas.

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