WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO ICT INDUSTRY

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO ICT INDUSTRY 

 

The recent Business Council of Australia report entitled "New Concepts in Innovation" made the point that innovation has many contexts beyond those typically attributed to activities in the fields of R&D and science. Innovation can happen every day in any organisation, if people are enabled and encouraged to innovate.

We are living in a fast changing world, where human capital and knowledge are the currency of future growth and economic prospects. Over the past twenty years the value created by people, their knowledge, relationships and the processes they create form a very large part (often more than 50 per cent) of market capitalisation.

This broader context of innovation is becoming imperative for any successful private or public sector organisation. We are looking at an increasingly constrained and ageing workforce, meaning workplaces will require a greater contribution from the people they employ. Organisations must start working smarter together, allowing their people to contribute more fully to the organisation's overall purpose with their own ideas and innovations.

Information and communications technology provides us with the ability to empower our people to do just that, through offering better tools to communicate, collaborate and innovate in the workplace. Of course the gains in productivity resulting from technology are well documented and provide an environment the "tech savvy" millennium generation will expect as they enter the workforce.

Successful business leaders in the new "knowledge economy" workplace will pull together people, tools and technology to create an environment where individuals are enabled and
encouraged to innovate, anywhere anytime.

Steve Vamos, vice president,
Microsoft Australia and New Zealand

Source