Dr Ju­dith M S Mark

Shift­ing geopol­i­tics, re­gion­al con­flicts, tech­no­log­i­cal changes, cli­mate change, po­lit­i­cal po­lar­iza­tion which have led to tar­iffs and sanc­tions as well as sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, are some of the fac­tors af­fect­ing busi­ness­es to­day. Or­gan­i­sa­tions glob­al­ly are now ex­pect­ed to re­spond time­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly to the forces that char­ac­terise the dy­nam­ic and at times hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment. There is no right an­swer in re­spond­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal changes as re­spons­es must be con­tex­tu­al, rel­e­vant and pur­pose dri­ven. Yet there is one com­mon thread for re­spons­es to be suc­cess­ful. That com­mon fac­tor is in­no­va­tion, a process or pat­tern of be­hav­iour that is chang­ing busi­ness mod­els and re­shap­ing glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion refers to new and en­hanced ways in struc­tur­ing, op­er­at­ing and man­ag­ing a busi­ness. The abil­i­ty to re­frame and re­think busi­ness mod­els, en­gage em­ploy­ees and strate­gi­cal­ly pur­sue a path that aligns op­er­a­tions with so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal goals go way be­yond the use of tech­nol­o­gy, which is a key en­abler. A ques­tion of in­ter­est is whether T&T’s or­gan­i­sa­tions are in­no­vat­ing at the rate re­quired to be rel­e­vant to­day, while tak­ing ac­tions to­wards long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness in the fu­ture?

The ma­jor chal­lenges for T&T in­clude en­er­gy sec­tor de­pen­dence, forex de­mand that out­strips sup­ply, a lag­ging dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion agen­da and so­cial in­equity. In­no­va­tions in the state and pub­lic sec­tors of­fer a path­way to ad­dress chal­lenges. Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion is both holis­tic and val­ue-gen­er­at­ing. To be in­no­v­a­tive, a com­pa­ny must be trans­for­ma­tive, mak­ing changes to its struc­ture, process­es and its strat­e­gy as re­quired. This ar­ti­cle fo­cus­es on or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

Why or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion mat­ters

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion mat­ters be­cause of its eco­nom­ic and so­ci­etal im­pact. Through in­no­va­tion, the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors are bet­ter equipped to find new and en­hanced ways to un­der­take their op­er­a­tions and to bet­ter serve cus­tomers.

Prod­uct and ser­vice in­no­va­tions in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor specif­i­cal­ly in the cre­ative, green en­er­gy, digi­ti­sa­tion and oth­er emerg­ing sec­tors, ac­cel­er­ate the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da. Through the ap­pli­ca­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and im­prove­ments in process­es, op­er­at­ing cost can be re­duced, and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy can be im­proved. The cre­ation of prod­uct of­fer­ings with unique val­ue propo­si­tions im­proves the glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness of firms. In­no­va­tions in ex­port-ori­ent­ed com­pa­nies gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change there­by pro­vid­ing a so­lu­tion to the forex short­age.

In­no­va­tions across all sec­tors are vi­tal to gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment, to en­hance the coun­try’s ex­port po­ten­tial and to pro­vide eco­nom­ic and so­cial ben­e­fits across com­mu­ni­ties.

T&T or­gan­i­sa­tions at the fore­front of in­no­va­tion

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was a pe­ri­od marked by dis­rup­tions in the op­er­a­tions and busi­ness mod­els of every or­gan­i­sa­tion in T&T. It can be said that the pan­dem­ic pushed com­pa­nies to re­think strat­e­gy, re­con­fig­ure re­sources and to in­no­vate. In­no­va­tion, how­ev­er, does not al­ways have to be pushed or forced. Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion is best when it is strate­gic and em­bed­ded in­to the com­pa­ny’s busi­ness strat­e­gy and cul­ture.

Across T&T the seeds of in­no­va­tion are ev­i­dent as man­i­fest­ed by in­no­va­tions in the pub­lic ser­vice and in pri­vate com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing con­glom­er­ates, SMEs seek­ing to scale, CBOs, NGOs and start-ups. An in­creas­ing num­ber of firms are adopt­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and stream­lin­ing op­er­a­tions to be ag­ile and fu­ture ori­ent­ed. Man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies are au­tomat­ing sys­tems to boost ef­fi­cien­cy, while in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor, in­no­va­tions have led to im­prove­ments in on­line in­ter­ac­tions. In ad­di­tion, there is in­creas­ing at­ten­tion to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the in­clu­sion of so­cial met­rics in de­ter­min­ing suc­cess. Prof­its with­out ben­e­fit to the wider so­ci­ety is no longer seen as mean­ing­ful suc­cess.

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion in pri­vate com­pa­nies

Con­glom­er­ates

The ANSA McAL Group has em­barked on wide-rang­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, in­te­grat­ing new tech­nolo­gies across its sub­sidiaries to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. The con­glom­er­ate has in­no­vat­ed across mul­ti­ple di­men­sions in­clud­ing busi­ness mod­el in­no­va­tion. The Massy group has al­so em­braced in­no­va­tion in its op­er­a­tions and has in­te­grat­ed ESG prin­ci­ples in­to its strat­e­gy while its op­er­a­tions is re­struc­tured around shared val­ue cre­ation, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial and so­cial re­turns to stake­hold­ers.

Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es

With­in the SME sec­tor, a num­ber of com­pa­nies have in­no­vat­ed their busi­ness mod­els for growth and com­pet­i­tive­ness. Ex­am­ples in­clude in­no­va­tions by Er­ic So­lis Mar­ket­ing Ltd which pur­sued di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as a growth strat­e­gy and be­came the first SME to list on the Trinidad & To­ba­go Stock Ex­change’s SME Mar­ket.

YBMS Biotec Ltd, an SME in in the biotech space has utilised in­no­va­tion as a means of ad­vanc­ing lo­cal­ly de­vel­oped bio-in­dus­tri­al and chem­i­cal tech­nolo­gies. This award-win­ning com­pa­ny fo­cus­es on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, pro­pri­etary R&D, and ex­port readi­ness.

Wi­Pay Caribbean con­tin­ues to be recog­nised for its in­no­va­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly in de­vel­op­ing and strength­en­ing part­ner­ships with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners as a strat­e­gy for growth and en­try in­to new mar­kets. In­no­va­tion of the busi­ness mod­els of these com­pa­nies demon­strate how cre­ativ­i­ty and tech­nol­o­gy can be used to scale com­pa­nies and pro­vide the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive.

Emerg­ing sec­tors

Start­up en­tre­pre­neurs in the cre­ative sec­tors are find­ing in­no­v­a­tive ways to con­vert lo­cal cul­ture to valu­able glob­al of­fer­ings. The use of sus­tain­able ma­te­ri­als in cos­tume de­sign, dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, AI, 3D mod­el­ing is tes­ti­mo­ny of the po­ten­tial of the cre­ative sec­tor to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change while con­tribut­ing to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic well-be­ing of com­mu­ni­ties. Com­pa­nies in­no­vat­ing in this sec­tor in­clude An­i­mae Caribe and Farr Cre­ative.

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion in the state sec­tor

A ta­ble of in­for­ma­tion­al text

AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent may be in­cor­rect.

In ad­di­tion to the afore­men­tioned com­pa­nies, so­cial en­ter­pris­es, NGOs and CBOs are al­so in­no­vat­ing their busi­ness mod­els. Re­cent pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions on in­no­va­tion and up­com­ing events like the Caribbean Drag­ons con­fer­ence on In­no­va­tion, the Pr.A.I.S.E Awards, Lok­Jack GSB’s event on Strate­gic In­no­va­tion as strat­e­gy as well as the con­tin­u­ing roles of in­sti­tu­tions like Cariri and IGovTT in ad­vo­cat­ing for in­no­va­tion, au­gur well for the cre­ation of an in­no­v­a­tive so­ci­ety equipped to face the fu­ture.

Cre­at­ing fu­ture-ready or­gan­i­sa­tions

Be­com­ing fu­ture-ready al­lows com­pa­nies to be bet­ter placed to thrive in dy­nam­ic en­vi­ron­ments both now and in the fu­ture. This re­quires or­gan­i­sa­tions to imag­ine the fu­ture and to in­no­vate with the fu­ture in mind:

* Em­brace Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion – Au­to­mate op­er­a­tions, adopt e-com­merce, and lever­age da­ta and AI;

* In­vest in Peo­ple – En­tre­pre­neur­ial lead­er­ship, dig­i­tal skills and in­no­v­a­tive mind­sets;

* De­vel­op a Cul­ture of In­no­va­tion – Fos­ter cre­ativ­i­ty at all lev­els;

* Build Sus­tain­abil­i­ty in­to Strat­e­gy – adopt so­cial­ly re­spon­si­ble prac­tices;

* Build Re­silience – iden­ti­fy and man­age risks; and

* Col­lab­o­rate & Net­work – Part­ner with lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties.

Con­clu­sion

Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion can be both pil­lar and bridge, the pil­lar that keeps the or­gan­i­sa­tion rel­e­vant and com­pet­i­tive to­day, and al­so the bridge that con­nects the present to the fu­ture. Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­no­va­tion en­ables state or­gan­i­sa­tions to more ef­fec­tive­ly pro­vide cit­i­zens with qual­i­ty ser­vices. Like­wise, with­in the pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers are ex­pect­ed to act en­tre­pre­neuri­al­ly and cre­ate a cul­ture where in­no­va­tion is em­bed­ded in the firms DNA and each em­ploy­ee is seen as an agent for change.

Dr Ju­dith M S Mark is a busi­ness strat­e­gy con­sul­tant, ed­u­ca­tor and aca­d­e­m­ic coach