Is It In Your DNA To Innovate Successfully?

We wrote in our earlier post, that you need to leverage on domain knowledge, networking and artificial intelligence (aka technology ) to be successful. So the question is whether it is in your DNA to innovate your way to value creation?Innovation is the bloodline of any business model in sustaining its value creation process. It is important to understand the processes that lead to innovation. The most important being to be able to frame a problem adequately. With keen power of observation and lots of patience, it is possible to develop a pipeline of problems to be solved. With this in place, we are able to ask ourselves why solving each of these problems would help to make our lives better. For sure, the solutions have to be useful and new. Doing this iteratively, we will be able to sharpen our focus on the root problem that requires a solution that will be demanded by the end-users.

To begin, let's take the present credit crisis as an example. 2/3 of US GDP is made up of consumption. And when the consumers have maxed out their spending power, businesses will be faced with business contraction and people will be laid off. Banks will be reluctant to lend as the credit risk increases. A downward spiral will soon gain traction and hurling the US economy and along with it the rest of the world's economy into a deep recession.

We also know that small, medium enterprises provide employment to a significant number of people in the economy and they are been starved of credit. It is this very credit ( or lack of it ) that is constricting and taking the air of the system, and if left unchecked will deflate the economy to a point of no return.

The question will be: how can we channel credit to productive activity, providing solutions that are new and useful towards solving problems?

Although central banks are able to stimulate through quantitative easing, the tools used are too blunt. Recipients of the credit may not be deserving, and the result could lead to another asset bubble been formed.

As such, in order to channel resources to deserving entities, we need to create a framework that will allow credit to be directed to those that can create value.

In order to achieve this, we need to identify the right people for the job. The First Who Then What paradigm. These are people who have the perseverance and tenacity to overcome the odds and succeed. They have a mission to achieve and have the correct values that will ensure their success.

In this connection, it will be critical to set up a centre to advise entrepreneurs on the how to succeed and whether their DNAs are wired up to innovate and sustain value creation.

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