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APAC Forum The Secret Sauce Organisational creativity is best fomented by complementing thought production with effective systems of action. By Dr. Ian O. Williamson While most economists agree that the recent global financial firms realise the commercial promise of innovation. Prior research crisis has ended, the impact of the crisis is far from over. This has found that nearly 50 per cent of attempts to implement new was a game-changing event that shifted client preferences, both technological and administrative initiatives end in failure. This causing existing markets to contract or close and creating new suggests that simply putting more money in the research and markets for products and services. This has resulted in many of the development (R&D) budget, in and of itself, is unlikely to cause practices, processes, and bodies of expertise that companies have firms to realise their innovation goals. developed over the past several decades becoming insignificant or irrelevant. Thus, while many managers might still hope for a Innovation is broadly recognised as a two-part process: (1) the return to a pre-crisis way of life, the reality is that the post-crisis creation of new ideas and (2) the harvesting of these ideas to world is now the new "normal." There is no going back. create valuable products, services, and processes. Thus, managers must recognise that there is a difference between invention and Against this backdrop, many executives are realising that innovation and not assume that a great idea will automatically innovation is the only viable path to survival in this new yield an innovative product or process. Indeed, research I have world. In a 2012 global survey of executives conducted by the conducted with Dr. Deepak Somaya (University of Illinois) and Boston Consulting Group, 76 per cent of executives identified Dr. Xiaomeng Shang (American University) suggests that in order innovation as a top-three strategic priority of their organisation. for firms to successfully navigate this two-step process they This number was even higher among executives within Asian must invest in R&D and also redesign their talent management markets. For example, 90 per cent of Indian executives and 81 strategies. per cent of Chinese executives rated innovation as a top-three priority, compared to only 66 per cent of United States executives. In our research, we examined the patent productivity (a key However, despite its strategic importance, it is often difficult for measure of innovation output) of 101 high technology, U.S.- [14] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | SPRING 2013