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SOURCE Conference Board of Canada
TORONTO, Feb. 19, 2013 /CNW/ - Moving from talk to action on innovation
in Canada was theme of the first day of the Business Innovation Summit 2013: Innovation for the Corporation, hosted by The Conference Board of Canada.
Daniel Muzyka, President and CEO, The Conference Board of Canada told
the attendees that the time for innovation is now.
"One of the resonating themes of this Summit, that I agree with
wholeheartedly, is we have many prescriptive reports about the nature
of the innovation gap and how to close it. The real challenge is to get
on with it."
"A focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has helped many Canadian
organizations weather the economic turbulence, but this approach will
ultimately render them obsolete. Only the constant pursuit of
innovation can ensure long term success," he added.
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HIGHLIGHTS
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Relatively few Canadian firms manage their innovation processes, even
though those that do generally obtain better results.
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Internal financing is most important source of financing for Canadian
firms.
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Complacency and aversion to risk are seen as key cultural obstacles to
improved innovation.
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Canadian firms have only limited formal innovation management systems,
said Michael Bloom, Vice-President, Organizational Effectiveness and
Learning, The Conference Board of Canada. Yet key findings of the
Conference Board's Innovation Metrics for Management 2012 survey
indicate that firms that both allocate time for innovation and manage
their processes get improved results.
"Spending time is not enough, formal innovation management is needed.
This does not suggest that we argue for more control of innovation, but
better coordination of innovation activities. It is something that
should twig (in organizations), and it has not twigged yet," said
Bloom.
Terry Stuart, Chief Innovation Officer of Deloitte, highlighted how
Canadian start-up firms are high-growth "gazelles" in the first five
years of their existence, but slow down their innovation and become
"water buffaloes" by failing to grow beyond a certain size after the
first five years.
John Lutz, President of IBM Canada, described the five Vs of "big data"
- velocity, volume, variety, veracity and vulnerability. Lutz said
Canada is the worldwide hub for IBM because "we believe we can do
things in Canada and can be more than the sales arm of a multinational.
"We apply our management system all over the world, and we get fabulous
results in Canada," he said. "The Canadian university system is
magnificent. But something is missing when you leap across into
commercialization."
The leaders of two organizations that are taking action on innovation
presented their approaches during a luncheon.
Dr. Suzanne Fortier, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council, launched the Interim progress report of the Strategy
for Partnerships and Innovation. "NSERC's Strategy for Partnership and
Innovation is a blueprint for action to increase Canada's benefits from
its investments in research and development."
In his luncheon keynote address, Nitin Kawale, President, Cisco Systems
Canada Co., said Canadian organizations need to let go of the old
notions of work, and focus on productivity rather than work hours of
9-to-5. He added that organizations need to forego the concept of
work-life balance for a different approach of work-life blending.
"People are not the problem. Productivity is not a Canadian worker
problem…People are ready, but Canadians organizations are not," said
Kawale. "Canadians are extremely productive in their personal lives. If
organizations allowed Canadians to be as productive in their
professional lives as they are in their personal lives, Canada would be
a lot better off."
Amanda Lang, Senior Business Correspondent, CBC News and author of the
new book, The Power of Why, called on the attendees to ask hard questions about why Canada should
be the "sweet spot" on innovation when compared to other countries. She
stated that a culture of complacency and risk aversion may offer some
of the answer.
"Our natural-born curiosity got drummed out of us. What got drummed into
us was fear of the wrong answer," said Lang.
The Summit continues Wednesday at the Fairmont Royal York. Keynote
speakers include:
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Simon Olivier, Vice-President, Growth, Market Strategy and Business
Development, GE Canada;
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Mike Andrade, Executive Vice-Presidetn, Diversified Markets, Celestica,
Inc.;
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Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer, OpenText
Corporation; and
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Peter Aceto, President and Chief Executive Officer, ING DIRECT Canada.
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