How a Trini lab is changing the innovation landscape

Innovation is on everyone's mind. We often ask as consumers, what is new out there? Is there something better to improve my business or what can give me a competitive edge? But innovation does not come easy. And when it comes, it can make companies and economies successful. Think Samsung and South Korea or Toyota and Japan or Google and the US. We often claim that we are innovative people. But are we genuinely innovative? The answer may surprise you.

An innovative firm or country can make it more competitive. Competitiveness has many dimensions, and innovation is one of them. The widely followed World Economic Forum's Global Competitive Index ranks nations on 12 pillars, innovation capability being one of them.

What is innovation Innovation is about solving problems—economic or social. The bigger the problem, the more enormous the money-making potential. Innovation can be sliced in many ways as a market can be segmented, and innovation can be product, process or management innovation (business model, marketing or human resource).

Others see innovation as influenced by the definition of the problem and the skills needed to produce it.

Greg Satell, the 2017 bestselling author of Mapping Innovation, has created a matrix with four types of innovation. The first type of innovation is sustainable, and it is more evolutionary—the problem is well defined, and so are the skills needed. Then we have breakthrough innovation where the problem is specified, but the skills to crack it is not easy to acquire. You might need to hire an expert or outsource to a research firm for this second type of innovation.

Thirdly, we have disruptive innovation, popularized by late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, who argued that improving your products or processes for consumers who want less and less of it does not give you the edge. Instead, he suggests business model innovation—transforming how a firm earns its revenue, incurs costs and manages its risk.

The fourth type, according to Satell, is basic research—the problem and the skills are not adequately defined. The discoveries and theories of Edison and Einstein have led to practical innovation years later. Still, firms may not want to invest in this category as its business benefit is nebulous.

Innovation problem The Global Competitive Index is not the only document that paints a gloomy local picture at 87 in the innovation pillar. The draft National Innovation Policy document of Trinidad and Tobago (2017-2020) finds that innovation performance is weak—the poor export capability of non-energy firms, low levels of research and development, public support organizations lacking the competencies for capacity building, among others.

Further at the micro-level, a research paper in 2017 found evidence that local SMEs were failing in the innovation game. Pricilla Bahaw's study on 350 indigenous firms on the topic revealed low levels of product, process and management innovation. Bahaw, a senior lecturer at COSTAATT, finds that "organizational culture, lack of reward and recognition, lack of finance, lack of skilled personnel, and lack of knowledge, lack of co-operation, market barriers, and legal barriers" were the main obstacles to innovation.

CARIRI's innovative way Enter CARIRI, and they have big plans for our innovation problem. Since 1970 the institution provided technical, engineering and industrial services to both public and private sectors. Later, they made substantial progress in transforming the “lab” to a full-service organization.

Significant investments have been made in human resource development, quality management systems and equipment to cater for an enhanced level of customer service and competitiveness. This organizational transformation meant that it now can play a vital role as a member of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Since it is accepted that Trinidad and Tobago's economic future rests on its ability to transition to a more diversified and sustainable base, the capacity of entrepreneurial action and its main output, innovation, holds great promise to transform our nation. What is CARIRI's approach to infusing the innovation spirit, and how can it benefit business owners?

In 2014 the Centre for Enterprise Development (CED) was formed in Freeport for innovation facilitation, entrepreneurship development and new business creation and expansion. CED has three legs: developing innovation literacy, fostering innovation at the enterprise level, and supporting entrepreneurship through their business hatchery.

CARIRI sought help from the Danish Technological Institute (DTI) to develop a model to assist aspiring entrepreneurs in advising them on their ideas, "pretotypes" development, and throughout the chain to commercialization. The risk of failure is enormous with early-stage firms, so that this service can improve embryonic business ideas.

The third leg of CED is the hatchery. This incubator concept goes further than idea analysis, and entrepreneurs in the programme can check for customer validation and business model sustainability. If you are a budding entrepreneur, your innocence and your cognitive blind spot could make you vulnerable, so they provide a coaching service to guide you through the maze of start-up challenges. From 2016 to April 2022, 168 incubates have graduated from the initiative.

Future of innovation?Recently CARIRI received US$ 10 Million from the European Union and the innovation lab of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) for the implementation of a Project titled "Shaping the Future of Innovation".

The project's objective is to increase innovation activity to drive business-led economic growth and job creation by developing new markets, products, services, and business models. This project has an Innovation Challenge to encourage entrepreneurs to think creatively about Technologies for Inclusion, ICT; Renewable Energy; Energy Efficiency; Waste Reduction; High-Value Agribusiness; and Manufacturing.

One of the greatest innovators, Thomas Edison, once said, "Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." If you have an idea but think it can automatically be commercialized, you might be in for a different kind of inspiration. As the CARIRI model shows, getting your innovative idea off the ground does not take much sweat if you have the right partner.

This is a condensed version of my article that appeared in my column in the T&T Business Guardian Money Magazine.

Visit www.entrepreneurtnt.com for my free ebook, Inside the Mindset of the Entrepreneur.