The Innovation Pandemonium: Challenges And Barriers To Innovation
Entrepreneurial firms, small, medium, or large sized, including subcontracting or direct operations, are vital for the economic development as they make tangible contribution towards the local-national-global economy in that order. But the challenges are immense. These firms have a typical impact on the environment, catering to several types of innovative enterprises emerging because of creative and innovative incumbent entrepreneurs like those of Paytm, Flipkart, Inmobi, Quikr, Zomato, Snapdeal, Swiggy etc. These entrepreneurs have been caught in the vortex of innovations for their over-all growth, which the authors have termed as “innovation pandemonium’.
Innovation is an engine and a competitive factor at any level, with several operational factors. These factors should be identified and studied in finding its influence in the process of innovation. It is a latent phenomenon requiring multilevel analysis with a multidisciplinary approach.
As being experienced in the current pandemic, only those firms survive, who can respond to uncertainties by introducing innovative products/services. For example, Ola was having almost no business till they launched Ola Ambulance service. Those who could not innovate in meeting the most pressing demands of customers, succumbed to the environmental pressures. These kind of volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment likely to be faced by the SMEs demand responses in the form of innovative initiatives.
Innovation is a newer way of doing certain things successfully by applying existing knowledge or techniques. It connects the mind and attitudes in pursuing greener ways for resolving prevailing difficulties. Innovation in developing learning platforms may be excellent places to start learning for using a structure to design one’s own learning. But there are issues beyond uncertainty and innovation has some contradictory dimensions too. These are related to ‘discontinuity and continuity’. Discontinuity, by its nature, deals with radical directions, while continuity is about innovation towards incremental change. The competition forces the top management either to initiate new changes or ignore the new opportunities.
Some technological innovations take lead in the form of product innovations, process innovations that are new to the market. Not surprisingly, innovations like wind turbines, concentrated solar power, geothermal energy, ocean wave energy in the energy sector are yet to be exploited. Some of the disruptive innovations build upon propositions as they offer value, enhancing the speed and cost effectiveness in delivering results. As a result, in this race for survival, innumerable innovative firms have taken birth with likes of Apple Inc., LG., Amazon, Saleforce, Zara, Lego, etc. to mention few across the canvas.
The innovation process due to competition or otherwise is risky. Successful entrepreneurs take calculated risk in introducing innovative products/services, it being the lifeline of small and medium enterprises. Hence, there is need of a strategic action on calibrating the consequences of innovation.
During application of the innovative process, enterprises may face a series of internal and external obstacles. The internal barriers may encompass infeasibility of the new idea, unclear roles of participating individuals, difficulty in sourcing and engaging the right people, problems in information collation, time pressure to make it fast pace and the financial implications. The external barriers comprise of uncertainty of technology, complex procedures of obtaining required licences, barriers in integrating with select stakeholders.
But if one considers combining these barriers towards creativity and innovation, it may range for knowledge transfer, character traits of individuals, myopic thinking, slack leadership, inability to match resources with capabilities, missing out on stitching collaborations, lacking focus while deluged with ideas to ensure last mile conversion for market delivery.
The external barriers (Exogenous)
The market motivated fences are external e.g. deficient market size and lack of demand. Other risks are inadequate size of research undertaken, unforeseen competition etc. Financial resources are yet another external barrier. These barriers relate to financial viability and thus reluctance for funding. Some other aspects in the process of up creating barriers to innovation comprise of technical, societal, and organisational ones.
The internal barriers (Endogenous)
These barriers relate with the internal factors of the organisation, evolving around the implementation of the innovation process. They may be a part of organisational dynamics and the controlling factors of innovation. One could be people related such as the perception including biases, inadequate motivation, and deficits in skills and might be ‘a state of status-quo’. This could be extremely harmful, when the gratification level lowers, and the sinking effect takes place. It becomes a serious barrier to respond to the growing competition and newer challenges. The situation calls for innovation or perish. ‘The status-quo’ of other firms no longer remains as an advantage and therefore become extinct. In this context, ‘innovation champions’ step in to fight. The competence barriers are because of deficit in creativity and specific skills needed to apply the up-to-the-minute knowledge on innovation. The behaviour of the organisational members during the innovation process gets influenced by the organisational design and structure. Such factors also determine the capacity of the enterprise to undertake innovation. The structure of the organisation may result into lack of communication, inappropriate incentive systems and turf war between departments. Centralisation of power in an organisation affects innovation negatively in firms, irrespective of their period of existence. A recent example of organisational changes can be seen in Intel mainly to boost innovation. This change brought three groups namely, Intel’s network platforms, internet of things and connectivity under single business umbrella unit for accelerating technology innovations.
The presence of endogenous and exogenous barriers defeats the purpose of innovation. Incidentally, the barriers compound to the exertions on the entrepreneurial act needing innovation incessantly. Certain other barriers relate to cultural issues and alignment within organisational levels.
The firms that are unable to handle the barriers to innovation suffer with their incapability to draw from signals, lack in mustering the financial strength and lack the strategic orientation and required foresight. Are employees empowered to innovate and cull out what’s missing in their strategy? Evidently, many firms misfire on their innovation strategy by limiting themselves to the comfortable centralisation of innovation charter. The lack of will towards seamless collaboration while attempting to create diversity becomes yet another impediment adding to innovation pandemonium.
