Throughout history, innovation has led to greater productivity and growth for businesses and nations alike.
Yet the recession, ever changing technology, consumer demand, rapid product cycles, shifting markets and increasing global competition, particularly from emerging markets, are all factors that have helped to undermine the sustainability of any organisation aiming to achieve growth via cost cutting, re-engineering or expansion into new markets. Businesses therefore need to embrace innovation to survive and need to ensure they have the operational capacity and structure to do so.
The economic downturn has impacted management’s encouragement of, and funding for, innovation. Downsizing has increased individual workloads, providing less time for individuals to come up with new ideas. The majority of businesses are not supporting innovation, and don’t have the processes in place to encourage it. As such, even the most talented engineer is unable to achieve sustainable product innovation. So often they are required to continue maintaining a new product even when it is ready for market. Instead they should be able to turn their attention to a new idea, to continue driving the innovation pipeline.
True innovation requires the support from the top. A business leader’s genuine and visible commitment to innovation across the organisation helps seed the culture of trust, creativity, collaboration and courage required to fill the product pipeline for the long-term. Leaders of successful businesses encourage risk-taking as a learning exercise and embrace persistence. They instil the idea that innovation is everyone’s job, not just those in R&D. These leaders encourage innovators to be open about learning curves, and to use failures as springboards for success. Yet even then, if an organisational structure does not support a business’s innovation strategy, it will not improve competitiveness. If the workforce model is aligned with a business’s strategy for innovation, then engineers will be free to innovate.
During tough economic conditions it is often the innovators and future-orientated roles that are dispensed with first. Engineering had been seen as a skill set that was ‘safe’ from downsizing, but the global uncertainty of recent times proved otherwise, with huge impacts:
1. Remaining engineers have been forced to take on a mix of high and low value tasks, no matter how experienced
2. It has delivered many specialist workers into the contingent market where their skills are accessed on a just-in-time basis
3. It has reduced the time engineers have to focus on innovation, research and testing and has encouraged a more output-driven approach to engineering skills
Those engineers that were previously tasked with developing new products now have to focus on repackaging existing designs rather than making dramatic change.
Now that companies are beginning to reinvest in innovation in the engineering sector, the impact of previous downsizing needs to be specifically addressed. A key issue will be ensuring that senior and highly skilled engineers are placed back into the right leadership roles so they can focus on encouraging innovation. Internal factors remain critical to driving innovation and organisations need to create an environment that supports the exchanging of creative ideas to make sure they make the most of their engineers and encourage innovation. This will necessitate a rethink of a business’s workforce, including the support services they have around them. It is critical that companies reward and recognise innovative thoughts whilst also accepting and even embracing failures.
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