Top management responsible for innovation

Innovation is one of the top priorities of a company’s boards. According to The Business Times, boards which do not promote innovation might end up destroying value rather than creating it.

In order to stay relevant in an ever changing business climate, it is essential for an organisation to keep innovating. A good example of innovation is Tesla’s self-driving cars. It is a combinatorial innovation that integrates technologies such as digital mapping, GPS and artificial intelligence.

Some of the reasons for the lack of innovation on the board level are lack of clarity of board’s roles in driving innovation, insufficient number of board members with expertise in driving innovation, and lack of motivation at board level to drive innovation that is deemed as more “risky” and difficult to measure. One way of overcoming this is by encouraging employees to try and to accept that they can make mistakes.