Innovation
GREAT CHALLENGE AND SURVIVAL STRATEGY IN ONE
It has almost become commonplace: If you want to survive the fourth industrial revolution and withstand the disruptive upheavals triggered by rapid technological change, you have to be innovative and anchor innovation sustainably in your company.
Swiss executives are also fundamentally convinced of this: an overwhelming majority regard innovation as the most important success factor of all. So much for the gray theory. However, a survey by Roy C. Hitchman AG (in cooperation with Raymond Hofmann Management) shows that the implementation of this insight is rather poor: Only over half of the companies surveyed systematically tackle innovation in a structured process. Only in a few of them is innovation a matter for the management: it is usually not on the agenda of the board of directors or the executive board. This is a major challenge that is recognized, but only tackled half-heartedly:
This contradiction provides the keynote of the 8th Hitchman Executive Panel on the topic of innovation and how to deal with it. Between January and March 2017, it was conducted among around 280 Swiss executives from various industries. What is the problem? Where is the shoe pinching? To get to the bottom of these questions, the initiators of the study presented the results of the survey to a panel of experts representing a wide range of competencies and relevant experience.