Emer­son John-Charles

Why have ma­jor com­pa­nies such as Carib Brew­ery, Agos­ti­ni Lim­it­ed and Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors re­cent­ly es­tab­lished in­no­va­tion de­part­ments?

Why do firms like Ramps Lo­gis­tics, SM Jaleel & Com­pa­ny and M&M In­sur­ance Bro­kers have their re­search and de­vel­op­ment di­vi­sions in­vest mil­lions of dol­lars every year?

The an­swer is sim­ple: the high­est re­turns in mod­ern busi­ness are no longer cap­tured in pro­duc­tion, but in re­search and de­vel­op­ment, de­sign, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP), down­stream mar­ket con­trol and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion. Man­u­fac­tur­ing and as­sem­bly have be­come in­creas­ing­ly com­modi­tised, while val­ue now re­sides in knowl­edge and IP own­er­ship.

For these ex­porters, this re­al­i­ty is felt im­me­di­ate­ly and in­tense­ly. In­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets have be­come bru­tal­ly com­pet­i­tive, with firms op­er­at­ing in fast-chang­ing glad­i­a­to­r­i­al en­vi­ron­ments where tra­di­tion­al sources of com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage are rapid­ly erod­ing. Qual­i­ty, de­liv­ery ca­pac­i­ty, pro­duc­tion scale, dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works and low­er costs are no longer enough to guar­an­tee long-term suc­cess.

At the same time, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, ro­bot­ics and au­toma­tion are mak­ing the once her­ald­ed task of op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence eas­i­er for all com­peti­tors to achieve. Ca­pa­bil­i­ties that once dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed firms are in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing ba­sic ex­pec­ta­tions or “hy­giene fac­tors” in the glob­al mar­ket­place.

This shift is ter­ri­fy­ing for many lo­cal firms. The as­sump­tions that pre­vi­ous­ly de­fined suc­cess ap­pear to be erod­ing faster and faster every day, while the need to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change has nev­er been more ur­gent. New­ly ap­point­ed TTMA Pres­i­dent Emil Ramkissoon re­cent­ly not­ed that many man­u­fac­tur­ers are now forced to care­ful­ly bal­ance lim­it­ed for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions while still try­ing to keep op­er­a­tions run­ning.

The crit­i­cal ques­tion there­fore be­comes this: if all busi­ness­es even­tu­al­ly gain ac­cess to the same AI tools and au­toma­tion tech­nolo­gies, what will dis­tin­guish the win­ners from every­one else?

In­no­va­tion Is be­com­ing the ul­ti­mate com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage

The an­swer is: firms that can con­tin­u­ous­ly trans­form ideas in­to nov­el or in­no­v­a­tive prod­ucts that are suc­cess­ful­ly in­tro­duced in­to the mar­ket. Un­like op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy, the ca­pac­i­ty for in­no­va­tion has no ceil­ing. In­no­va­tion’s abil­i­ty to de­light cus­tomers, open new mar­kets and cre­ate en­tire­ly new val­ue propo­si­tions can nev­er be­come a mere hy­giene fac­tor.

In­no­va­tion is there­fore emerg­ing as the ul­ti­mate dif­fer­en­tia­tor and may soon be­come the on­ly sus­tain­able source of com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage. It is no sur­prise that for­ward-think­ing firms are now cre­at­ing spe­cial­ized in­no­va­tion de­part­ments as a mat­ter of sur­vival rather than pres­tige.

For­tu­nate­ly, or­ga­ni­za­tions no longer have to ap­proach in­no­va­tion blind­ly. In­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices now ex­ist through com­pre­hen­sive frame­works such as ISO 56001, which has been adopt­ed as the na­tion­al in­no­va­tion stan­dard by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bu­reau of Stan­dards.

Why most firms strug­gle to in­no­vate

Im­ple­ment­ing in­no­va­tion man­age­ment will not be easy. Sig­nif­i­cant or­gan­i­sa­tion­al trade-offs and cul­tur­al changes will be re­quired. Many lo­cal firms still op­er­ate with­in com­mand-and-con­trol, qual­i­ty-dri­ven cul­tures where pre­dictabil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy dom­i­nate de­ci­sion-mak­ing. Build­ing a cul­ture that en­cour­ages ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, ac­cepts un­cer­tain­ty and em­braces the “fuzzy front end” of in­no­va­tion will chal­lenge many or­ga­ni­za­tions.

Even seem­ing­ly sim­ple changes, such as in­clud­ing met­rics like lessons learned, con­cepts val­i­dat­ed or ex­per­i­men­ta­tion out­comes in per­for­mance ap­praisals, are like­ly to face stern re­sis­tance from man­agers ac­cus­tomed to tra­di­tion­al per­for­mance sys­tems.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, busi­ness­es must de­cide which pain they are will­ing to en­dure: the pain of de­clin­ing mar­ket share, shrink­ing prof­its and po­ten­tial ir­rel­e­vance, or the dis­com­fort that comes with trans­for­ma­tion and rein­ven­tion.

The strate­gic choice ahead

Our firms can ei­ther re­main frus­trat­ed while watch­ing oth­ers in­no­vate suc­cess­ful­ly, or they can take the strate­gic step of ap­point­ing a Chief In­no­va­tion Of­fi­cer, to in­sti­tu­tion­al­ize in­no­va­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties and de­vel­op mul­ti­ple fu­ture growth en­gines ca­pa­ble of com­pet­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, en­sur­ing long-term sur­vival and com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Emer­son John-Charles is an ISO na­tion­al in­no­va­tion ex­pert and chair, In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go