By Horst Simon, the Risk Culture Builder

INNOVATION: The new core competency

Enterprise-wide innovation is a key operational discipline. Re-invent the way you create the future as “business as usual” will not work. The only things that separate us from our competitors are the skills, knowledge, commitment and innovative abilities of our people—no longer products or good service.

Innovation comes from all employees, down to the lowest level. Take the classic case of the tanker drivers of an oil company convincing other truck drivers gathered at truck stops, to use their brand of fuel! Move beyond the confines of the expected, be gutsy and a little wild, yet always in control.

We will institutionalise service quality and customer satisfaction—it must be everyone’s job. It is not negotiable and it is critical to our survival. Help customers to achieve their goals, and we will achieve ours. All customers are prospects and all customers are members of the team.

Development time-scales are measured in weeks, not years. Customers are co-developers, providing real-time feedback in an endless cycle of experiment, adapt, experiment, and adapt. Fire, fire, fire, aim again, fire, fire, fire-—here is no time for “ready”.

The ultimate goal is a radically new business concept—on going! There is no end to what we are doing!

We will:

• Build the Brand
• Give staff the tools to build skills
• Hire only the best and deal only with the best
• Make sure that revenue growth always exceeds expenditure increase in everything we do.