Innovation matters – of course! Unless organisations change what they offer the world and how they create and deliver those offerings, there’s a good chance that they won’t survive in a hostile and competitive environment. They certainly won’t grow. The challenge, of course, is how to make innovation happen? How do we organise and manage the process to create business and social value?
That’s an old theme and we’ve learned quite a lot of useful lessons about how to manage innovation – but there is still plenty of work to do to configure these recipes to suit particular circumstances.
Innovation in services is obviously an important area – after all, around 70% of our economies are made up of services - yet until comparatively recently we were applying models of innovation which originated in the world of manufacturing. That’s changing fast and we are now recognising both the similarities and the differences in service innovation. Amongst important themes emerging from this are: the key role of demand-side knowledge as an input to innovation; the extent of ‘hidden’ R&D which goes on in services; the particular challenges of public service innovation, trying to balance risk, reward and reliability in delivery; the role of services as a driver for software innovation; differences in ‘front’ and ‘back office’ innovation in services; challenges to service models from the world of emerging markets
This breakfast talk will highlight some of the key perspectives coming from research around these themes and illustrate them with case examples.
Originally a chemical engineer, Professor John Bessant has been active in research, teaching and consultancy in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. He currently holds the Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Exeter University where he is also Research Director. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He served on the Business and Management Panel of both the 2001 and 2008 Research Assessment Exercises. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and to international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank and the OECD.
Professor Bessant is the author of over 20 books and monographs and many articles on the topic and has lectured and consulted widely around the world. His most recent books include Managing innovation (now in its 4th edition) and High involvement innovation (both published by John Wiley and Sons).
Professor John Bessant will be in Luxembourg for the Luxembourg Innovation Masterclass, organised by Luxinnovation, in collaboration with Hitec, Goodyear, IEE et Delphi.