Innovation Valuing ‘Brilliance’ is Imperative for New India

Innovation and Intellectual Property value creation by brilliance has become a key focus of business in the Innovation-based Economy, globally. In spite of this consensus, increasing number of leading multinational organizations are actively building their Intellectual Property(IP) as a value generator from India and this is considerably higher than the volume of intellectual property creation from Indian organisation. Those in the know have understood the considerable importance of IP driven Innovation and as a result, have pro-actively put in place a framework and system to encourage and to track Innovation. Today IP creation is a new metric to gauge a country’s and an organization’s growth and contribution globally.

India has branded itself as an Information Technology and Technology Services leader and has the power to pull together large numbers of extremely talented and well-educated individuals. Innovation for Organizations like Google, Samsung, Facebook, Twitter, Practice Fusion, etc. is not only driven through planned collaboration for the initiation of an idea but also through the relationships of the employees of these Organizations.

The key challenge today in an Innovation-driven economy is that individuals have been historically driven to work in massive development shops. Quality work is always given, but it does limit the opportunity to stimulate innovation.  The key is to take this talent into more startups and smaller local firms.  It is essential to note that these talented employees need to move around from one organization  to another as their compensation and equity packages vest.  It is this mobility that is an underpinning to creating innovation.  Diversity of talent through mobility opens up opportunity for collaboration.    

There is a known fact that many employees of these organizations suffer from something that is referenced as the “Four Year Syndrome”.  Upon working for an organization in Silicon Valley for four years, an employee becomes fully vested with their stock options.  Upon such time, they can then leave their current employer and join another organization.  In effect, a talented employee shifts from one organization to another every four years.  This allows for fluidity in the relationships between employees and spurs creativity and innovation, allowing individuals from various organizational backgrounds to come together and form new startups and develop new ideas. 

Indian Services industry is a major contributor to the Gross Domestic Product. Product/Service oriented organizations need to align their business strategies with innovation and define their objectives and work environment accordingly. Innovation in organizations is a mix of innovation critical for its continuing survival and growth. Such innovations have to take place not only in product and process breakthrough’s but also in host of business, organization and process-related areas that are critical for facilitating product and process innovations. Key management processes of new product development; capital project appraisal and resource allocation need to be carefully redesigned making them conducive to the innovation process within the organization. Taking these actions to support innovation within the firm will allow the  Services Organizations to successfully leverage their domain knowledge. It will also allow them to capture the Value added activity market. Organizations that come to India for cost savings will stay on for the quality of people and ultimately invest in innovation. It’s time to capitalize on the country's greatest international advantage: the ability to innovate.

India needs to accelerate in promoting high-tech startup and established equity incentive market within its local organizations.  This reward system of both monetary compensation and stock compensation, combined with a successful stock market allow individuals to see rewards from working at various organizations, while helping their employers grown.  Innovation is not created through lifetime employment. It is fostered through mobility and flexibility. 

Most innovative organizations constantly look for ways to keep their employees stimulated and working on new projects. A regular job rotation across various divisions proves to be an enabler for employees to diversify their thoughts and create better value.  Such diversity allows for individuals to work on new and interesting things; therefore, it is exciting and challenging.  This flexibility stimulates innovation. Thus enabling to keep employees past their vesting periods because they can move around the organization and work on new things.  This is maintaining the innovative drive.

Leveraging on highly qualified individuals from academia is a key aspect towards creating IP. However, this still remains an area for improvement with Indian corporations, to bring in highly talented personnel from premium institutes.

Although the Indian Services Industry has not traditionally been considered an “Innovation-base”, it must move towards this goal if it must sustain itself in the long run. Service Providers are building their competencies by simulating pilot or lighthouse projects. These service providers should find opportunities to partner with Indian organizations for catering to the domestic market intrinsically . This can be mutually beneficial allowing Service Providers to gain the required expertise without spending resources in non-revenue activities. In due course of time, highly specialized service providers will emerge. As a result, projects will be implemented as a consortium by bringing together the domain expertise of various groups and providing the best output.

Innovation is driven in any organisation through a dream to differentiate and value 'brilliance' with ‘wow’.  It is possible only by leaders who desire to build something exciting and the drive to be a successful in new India as well globally - Let's transform by Inventing and Making it in India.

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