Don't lose focus when innovating

An idea, even if it is a brilliant one with the potential to disrupt an industry, isn't going to be worth much; unless, it was born at a company with a history of recognising and actively investing in innovation at every stage, experts at Oracle said.
Speaking at a session during Oracle OpenWorld Middle East, Neil Sholay, vice president of Innovation at Oracle, said that every company agrees on the importance of innovation and the benefits that they enjoy because of it. "However, when you look at why innovation isn't happening, you realise that there are a couple of factors that are hindering the process. The first is that there are too many ideas that are being generated, and not all of them are going to meet the needs of the industry. The second reason has to do with culture - specifically getting an idea through levels and levels of bureaucracy and approvals. Lastly, there is a lack of formal innovation process that hinders sustainable innovation."
Sholay also cited the findings of Oracle's new 'Having a successful innovation agenda' report, which surveyed over 5,000 decision makers in cloud solutions and software across 24 markets. The report found that despite a clear link between growth and innovation, companies are failing to realise more than half of the innovations they propose. One third of companies in the survey said that they are overwhelmed by too many innovation projects. In addition, 22 per cent of respondents say that a lack of process is hampering their innovation efforts; the same number blame a lack of vision and an underinvestment in technology in holding back their innovation program.
The report also showed that 85 per cent of companies experiencing strong to significant growth are investing in innovation. Sholay said that when looking at companies with a history of successful and continued innovation, there are three factors that are apparent. "The companies tend to be first movers, launching products before anyone else in the market. They describe themselves and are often seen as being risk takers; and lastly, their CEOs don't tend to delegate innovation. If you look at companies such as Tesla and DP World, they all have heads that lead from the front."
"Another thing that we have seen is that these successful organisations are in the habit of taking on projects that are big enough to matter, but small enough to be managable," Sholay said.
Clive Swan, Oracle's SVP for Applications Development, also spoke about the importance of making informed decisions about investments based on the data that a company has at its disposal. "I always encourage people who are innovating to build in measurements that look at the success of your idea and then help you to focus on where you need to invest further. This is where the role of a data scientist proves to be invaluable because they can help you to focus on a scenario or a result that you might not have noticed or even been aware about."
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com

Rohma Sadaqat

rohma@khaleejtimes.com