Leveraging Innovation and Resilience for Success: What it means and why we need it

Prashant Ranade and Anu Venkitaraman, IndusSME

Key takeaways

• Organizations that are both innovative and resilient improve financial results by 2X, create 3X shareholder value
• A vast gap persists due to lack of understanding and sound implementation on these two initiatives
• Data is the ‘new oil’ that must be leveraged for faster, improved decision making
• Creating a culture that encourages and rewards innovation is key to success

In a recent study conducted by Prophet Consulting, leaders of 98% of surveyed organizations recognized that innovation and resilience are absolutely vital for success. In fact, implementation of these two initiatives improved financial results by 2X and created 3X shareholder value. Yet only 23% of these leaders said that their organizations were both innovative and resilient.

Why does this gap exist? Very simply: a basic misperception of these two initiatives. Innovation is “doing right things right, not just doing things right” with a new idea, product, process or technology.  Resilience is the ability to weather market and environmental changes, often through innovation. Organizationally, innovation requires explicit investment for change while resilience focuses on process improvement and waste elimination. So, innovation and resilience are two sides of the same coin and are often complementary functions.

The essentials for innovation and resilience are readily available in existing data within the organization. With the right people, tools and analysis, this data can be converted into meaningful information, actionable insights and collective acumen, and pave the way for true innovation and resilience. But to make it stick, innovation and resilience exercises must percolate through all levels of the organization through data democratization. It demands that everyone in the organization be empowered to bring forth ways to improve the business from ideation to compilation and assessment to implementation.

Part Two on this topic discusses practical considerations and leadership guidelines to create a culture of innovation and resilience.

In conclusion

Innovation and resilience underscore an organization’s ability to adapt and evolve in ever-changing environments.  Learn how you can future-proof your organization with IndusSME’s tailored data services, analytics and security services.