Innovation needs New Thinking

Innovation needs New Thinking 

“The economy is poised like a coiled spring. As its’ energies are released (facilitated by the positive vaccine performance), the recovery should be one to remember after a year to forget.” So says The Bank of England’s Chief Economist, Andy Haldene.

Haldene has talked about this “pent up demand" in the economy for several months now as data shows that a significant amount of consumers and companies have been able to save as well as profit from the restrictions on movement and will be ready to spend and invest as soon as it’s safe to do so.

Some recent research from our Zillennial Jury (4th February 2021) highlighted that consumers (18-26) were super keen to return to hospitality venues and did not apply the same level of price sensitivity that they do with retail.

In the last few weeks, Andy Haldene has also spoken about the potential negative impact on innovation during the lockdown saying “home working has probably reduced capacity for creative thought.”

He said an absence of distraction and noise, made easier for some people by home working, favoured “cognitive tunnelling”- a state of mind in which the brain focusses on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

But he added: “Homeworking means serendipity is supplanted by scheduling, face to face Zoom to Zoom. What creativity is gained in improved tunnelling is lost in the darkness of the tunnel itself. I imagine that some people will have used lockdown to write that creative novel they always knew was in them. I doubt many will become modern-day classics”

Enterprise and entrepreneurship have certainly flourished in the last 12 months with businesses having to pivot on the spot to survive. Our celebrated vaccine rollout programme is a great example of adversity innovation. What the Chief Economist is talking about, however, is the ability for businesses to regain their innovation mojo post lockdown as this will be a critical driver for business growth over the 20s.

Tom Ellis, Chairman of The Global Innovation Forum and CEO at Brand Genetics agrees. "The need for innovation has never been higher and the challenge to deliver it has never been tougher. It’s been proven that R&D delivers the greatest ROI in a recession but companies often foresee barriers to action. They feel that they should stick to their knitting and not diversify, they worry about the time and cost involved and the risks of failure. Innovation is a team game, not a Teams’ game and companies that engender a creative mindset within their culture will be able to transition well once lockdown is finally eased.”

Jamie Williams, Managing Partner at London Ad agency Isobel, sees the product and service development that has been accelerated in the Food and Drink Industry by the lockdown as having turbo-charged consumer needs for things like local and delivery. “The Lockdowns have ramped up existing trends like “bring it to me” - D2C brands have been able to cut out the middleman and deliver great products and services direct to homes. As the lockdown eases brands will need to power up creative innovation to meet the heightened expectations from consumers. Simply going back to the old processes of the development team will not be enough.

Agencies like ours have managed to successfully reposition their innovation processes online to support clients remotely, but nothing beats the physical, often chaotic coming together of people to stimulate and build new solutions.”

If you are keen to discuss how your business gets ready to reinvigorate your innovation in more detail then please get in touch…[email protected].