KnowledgeBrief’s members were joined this month by Dr Ali Parsa, Founder and CEO of Babylon Health, to highlight the importance of innovation to the UK economy, and how it can be pursued.
Today, the prosperity of any nation is dependant on what it produces and what it sells to the rest of the world. Yet, in 2011 Britain did more business with Ireland than with the BRICS nations. We need to think about innovation not only in terms of what we have but, more importantly, what the other side needs.
Participants, including City of London, HSBC, TGI Fridays and Liverpool CCG, identified that “business as usual” takes precedence but they need to spend more time away from their day jobs to truly absorb different perspectives and to seek out their most innovative people.
To succeed in innovation, focus on three things:
- Think strategically and focus resources: Apple Inc. for example started out by focusing on only two products. In short, if you’re not good at something, stop doing it.
- Focus on what people need: Incremental changes can squeeze that half of a percent out of the business – but you will lose out once someone else introduces something radical.
- Get out of your comfort zone and push innovations globally: With 80% of global growth coming from developing markets, we can no longer just sell to those around us. We need to learn from, work with, and sell to emerging markets.
Innovation and success is all about alignment – timing is critical for nurturing ideas and for seizing the moment. Excellent leadership is needed to support and drive forward great ideas, across both the private and public sector.
Next, this group will explore how to Innovate across Organisational Boundaries. For more information and to join, please view the event page.