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Innovation is one of these things that economists and businesses have been trying to understand for hundreds of years and until very recently they hadn't actually been getting very far. Was this something special that scientists in a special laboratory did? Something directed by the Board of Directors? More to the point, did we need it at all? fortunately some decent answers have been coming out of the research recently and we now have some guidance on the matter. We tend to divide the whole subject into two: invention and innovation. Invention is the creation of something entirely new. It can indeed be seen as something that scientists do in their laboratories (although it's still just as likely to be the man in his shed) and that isn't what we're really talking about here. Innovation however is the much more important part. You might think that this is a ridiculous idea, that invention is much more so, but no, think of it this way. As a company, you have something, a widget, a service, a process. You sell this and are quite happy: but you also have a number of competitors who also sell widgets, services and processes. Innovation is the constant process of improving that product in every manufacturing cycle, a series of 1 and 2 % increases in efficiency or reductions in cost that over the years will add up to a radical change in both the product and the bottom line. Invention is indeed something wonderful, but it isn't the day to day life blood of a company, innovation is, the constant reductions in cost and increases in reliability and function of what you already make and sell. We thus get to the important question: where do you go to buy a few sackfuls of this wonderful innovation? Buying would indeed be interesting but you don't actually do that: you harvest it. The people who know your current product are the people who already work for you. All of them will have ideas about how to improve it, how to make it easier to manufacture, how to make it cheaper. Consultants in this are have quite seriously seen 1% improvements simply when workers on a factory floor are allowed to decide where to put the waste bins! Perhaps the most famous example of innovation (most definitely not invention) was when the Royal Navy was looking to build a new generation of aircraft carriers: One Lieutenant Commander suggested that instead of having a flat deck, why didn't they have a ramp so planes were already going up in the air when they left? It works too, as you can see if you look at one. So sadly innovation isn't something that you can call up the bods at Talisman and order, either by the barrel or as a desirable quality in a future employee: innovation already exists in your own workforce, the task is to harvest it.
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