His advice to corporates battling to fit these ‘round’ pegs in ‘square’ holes, is to establish a new company for these entrepreneurial individuals. “Give them a shareholding in the new company and then enter into a service level agreement with them. At the end of the day, if the incentive is sufficient they will perform.”
There is little doubt that TT100 is doing its bit for commercialisation, offering as it does the opportunity for companies to showcase themselves and their inventions. “We measure the degree of commercialisation of all entrants into TT100 in terms of a basket of ideas offered,” reports Marcus. “Successful entries have typically commercialised their inventions to a significant degree and subjected the product to a number of fairly ruthless cycles of interrogation.”
The danger is in not going overboard: if the product or invention is subjected to too ruthless a process, creativity is lost. “Many companies pride themselves on their internal processes which are designed to minimise risk but in so doing, they may be missing out on some potentially lucrative opportunities. You need to allow for a degree of reflection to see where a new innovation is going. Those companies that are prepared to put their innovations through a relevant process will ultimately have the greatest reward.”
One of the metrics used in the judging of the TT100 awards is speed to market, in particular, how much revenue is generated from products invented less than three years ago. Other metrics include investment in research and development, adaptability, sustainability and market leadership. High staff turnover is another metric as this can indicate a problem within the business. “Part of innovation is how you manage your business,” says Marcus.
Truly innovative companies have an inherent restlessness to them, adds Hanson. They are constantly making structural changes, ask questions and move the goalposts regularly. They are never satisfied with the status quo.
“It’s a systematic process which evaluates the risks, intellectual property, regulatory and technical risk, market demand and pricing, and funding models.”
“Ideally companies should be coming up with new products every six months. Unfortunately, however, many get bogged down in bedding down new products with the result that they miss the boat. In tough economic times there is a tendency to launch new products that can be commercialized quickly,” says Hanson.
There is no doubt that there is a business case for commercialisation: done correctly it will improve a company’s bottom line. It is in South Africa’s best interests to encourage a culture of innovation, entrepreneurialship and commercialisation, all of which could have a profound impact in terms of economic development and combating unemployment.
Management Today | November 2011 11
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