Innovate or Die (2. strana)

BUSINESS “Innovate or Die” According to their owners, an increasing number of businesses focus on innovation. Pavel Csank, of the MSIC, believes that the word “innovation” is massively overused. It often refers to a growing range of phenomena related to enterprise and is gradually losing meaning. People sometimes wonder what it means even though innovation has a serious impact on the lives of each of us. We asked Mr Csank what motivates companies to innovate, what are some typical mistakes, and what is the prospect of innovation in the Moravian-Silesian Region in the decades to come. Innovation is an indivisible part of development. What do you think of companies reluctant to innovate? For over a century, companies who do not innovate have been considered doomed. There is a popular and frequently quoted saying, “innovate or die.” Numerous analyses of many companies support that. Some businesses can be successful and are interested in innovation but very often, once they have grown to a particular size or stage of development, they struggle to continue innovating. It is connected to the general discomfort most people feel when experiencing changes. About a third of businesses operating at the NY Stock Exchange come in with an innovation of a new, very particular kind. The word innovation is perceived as a foreign expression, not associated with real content because the innovation per se comes in various forms. It may represent a change in the colour or shape of a chair or it might refer to a newly developed medical treatment. Even though the word’s connotation is not quite clear, it consists of exactly the issues transforming the world around us. What is the current greatest driving force in innovation? I believe that the obligation to minimize carbon emissions is the principal drive of innovations. The first Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century, started up the carbon economy. If we analyse its chemical and material composition, it was based on fossil fuels. Without energies, there is no industry, and industry has brought a great surge in productivity and allowed for all the current material wealth. We obviously cannot operate without a significant change if we want the planet to remain habitable. Data show that the scale of high-risk investments in environmental technologies is growing rapidly. New companies offering technologies with a proven positive impact on the environment report a dramatic increase of yields and growth. They often rely on public investment. All modern technologies somehow connect to public investments, which is not a generally known fact: the internet or smartphones would have never existed if it had not been for public investment in their research and development. What mistakes do businesses typically make once they decide to innovate? They will not delegate responsibilities and decision-making--that is the greatest and most frequent mistake in small businesses. Their owners often focus on too short-term planning. They have low ambitions in growth and innovation. There is a tension between the financial and process propropsects on one side and the creative humans on the other in every enterprise, especially if the company is at the stock exchange. Then there is an immense pressure on the short-term financial result. And when you focus on the short-term financial result, you start missing on the means to support significant elements of the internal innovation environment which affects the company culture and how the company allows experiments and implementation of novelties. Much innovation is the side effect of something completely different. What seems to be a good innovation at first sight turn out to be a failure? It certainly can. Firstly, a great majority of good ideas have already been invented, discovered, and tried out. Secondly, numerous innovation projects do not meet expectations. Financial managers and other people responsible for finance then become very suspicious about innovation. Nowadays, the problem is that too much emphasis is on technology. Innovation is a phenomenon a bit different from invention. Many people connect innovation with technology, which may be important, but if it is not used properly, it has no added value for the customer. Therefore, they will never bring the desired effect and profit. How much of its capital, time, and attention should a company spend on innovation? There is not a single correct answer to this. There are countless ways to understand innovation. It basically depends on what the change is based on. It can be the search for a new product; the company may struggle for higher productivity and to be more useful; the innovation may be in the relationships between the company and customers. If I were to respond in one sentence, I would say it depends on what the company wants to achieve. There are many kinds of company owners: the level of their ambition reflects the operation of their enterprise. How it works, if it is or is not successful, greatly depends on how much the owners invest, how they manage company finances, and where they spend it. That is connected to the company culture and employees, too. Do you have a vision where innovation will go in the Moravian-Silesian Region in the decades to come? A regional economy is like a living organism going through evolution. I believe that the hot topics will be new energies, production methods, and energy management. There will be an increasing number of companies focused on the development and assembly of components and units for power production, distribution, and management. The carbon economy is at its end; it will not exist in some fifty years. Looking ten to twenty years ahead, changes will come. More and more companies wonder about hydrogen as the energy resource for the future. Hydrogen is believed to be the right direction, and we all understand that the sun and wind is not enough. The whole of the energy system needs to store energy, as it becomes basically useless once it cannot be stored. The current competition, therefore, is in who develops the most efficient energystoring technology. Automotive industries are going through significant changes. Thirty years ago, the greatest export of the Moravian-Silesian Region was steel; now it is the automotive industry which keeps growing. The best examples are the transformation of new fuels and autonomous control of vehicles. Our great advantage is that we stand close to where the trends are born; we can watch them happening, and make use of the business opportunities they bring. Thank you for the interview. POSITIV 4/2020 ǀ 41