Innovation and its connection with technology and globalisation

“If you stop innovating and thinking about the big picture, there’s a long-lasting effect on business performance.”

QUT’s Professor Rowena Barrett opened The Innovative Enterprise webinar by highlighting the importance of remaining innovative in the face of global change.

After two successful series, The Future Enterprise, jointly presented by MIT Sloan School of Management and QUT Business School, has returned for its third series.

With innovation so widely sought after but implemented to various degrees of success, our global experts explored how leaders can operationalise innovation in their organisations.

Professor Fiona Murray, CBE from MIT Sloan and Professor Robert Perrons from QUT drew on their deep expertise to unpack the system of innovation.

Innovation in deep tech

Professor Fiona Murray established that science and technology are competitive advantages in innovation and driving meaningful impact.

“Innovation is not just grounded in software, but also grounded in real advances in science, technology and engineering,” she said.

“Mastering technology in the lab and also at scale in the world is important to economic growth.”

The challenge today with deep tech is unresolved innovation issues, which is felt worldwide.

More specifically, the challenge is the competition for control of the most important technologies.

Geopolitical tension

For leaders there is a challenge in delivering growth and scale in an era of heightened geopolitical tension. Professor Murray argued that leaders need to take more care in where capital, talent come from and how their supply chain are constructed.

Professor Murray posed a key question to the audience, asking, “How do we balance a global approach with the emerging need for sovereign capability and a nationalistic approach?’

“A decade ago, we were telling entrepreneurs to scale globally, with economic strength as the absolute goal,” she continued.

“Now, this has shifted to protecting national security interests.”

Leading an innovative enterprise is about addressing this complex balancing act.

The innately human nature of innovation processes

Professor Robert Perrons continued posing questions to the audience, asking, “How did human innovation work for most of human history?”

Before twenty-five years ago, innovation was facilitated and implemented without technology. Advances like the internet have allowed people and ideas to “make magic happen in a way that was impossible a few decades ago.”

Professor Perrons highlighted that, at its core, innovation is about sharing ideas, with innovation often coming from serendipitous moments.

The Allen Curve was established by MIT Sloan Professor Thomas Allen in the 1970s.

The concept relies on an innately human process, as Professor Perrons explains.

“How you organise people is going to have a significant impact on how ideas happen and how information flows through the organisation,” he said.

“Focus on creating an organisation where serendipitous moments can happen.”

These could include regular offsites, small coffee meetings between employees, and even where the water coolers are located.

Now that virtual work is so commonplace, many companies, including tech giant Google, are calling for their employees to return to the office.

“What these leaders are recognising is there is still an inescapable human dimension to the innovation process,” Professor Perrons said.

“You need proximity to get this back.”

How to create an innovative enterprise

Encourage collaboration

Professor Murray explained that the approach to innovation depends on the technology you’re dealing with.

She suggested that the first step organisations should take is to draw on local sources of talent and expertise.

“We often have blinkers on,” she explained. “A great opportunity for diversity and inclusion is encouraging those who are close to us to be involved in innovation.”

The next step Professor Murray suggested is to reduce the friction of collaborating. Making the systems of collaboration more straightforward will encourage innovation.

Create serendipity

Professor Perrons continued this sentiment, explaining that creating the conditions that make serendipitous moments of collaboration more likely is a skill set tomorrow’s managers need.

Leaders need to clearly articulate the large overarching objective of the organisation and to accommodate the messiness and noise that will have to be tolerated to support innovation-related process.

Professor Murray echoed that we need to treat the time we have together as a scarce resource and to treat it with care.

Establish geopolitical innovation from the start

Professor Murray also highlighted that companies should talk about balancing global expansion and protecting national strength from the start.

While most start-ups don’t have this vocabulary, they need to establish a sophisticated understanding from their beginnings.

Companies need to consider their supply chains, talent, cybersecurity and their own location to set themselves up for success.

Want to revisit The Innovative Enterprise webinar? Watch the recording here.

Want to discover how to pursue entrepreneurship in your organisation? Join our global experts for The Entrepreneurial Enterprise on Thursday 3 November 8am AEST/Wednesday 2 November 6pm EDT. Find out more and register here.