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THEMES AND ROLES IN INNOVATION. B.V.L.NARAYANA SPTM/RSC/BRC. Themes and roles. Innovation process in large firms:
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THEMES AND ROLES IN INNOVATION B.V.L.NARAYANA SPTM/RSC/BRC
Themes and roles • Innovation process in large firms: • To establish and manage a systemic process of innovation in firms requires a combination of specialized activities and coordination across these activities. Therefore, in firms, which establish and manage the systemic process of innovation, there are roles for specialists and coordinating managers. The process of innovation can be segregated into three distinct sets of activities -- invention, acceptance and implementation.
Themes and roles • Three phases of innovation –invention , acceptance, implementation • This necessitates roles for four types of people (Sim et al 2007) – • The inventors who focus on scientific and technical invention prior to concept development • Champions who are adept at selling the projects in organizations • Implementers who focus on facilitating the project through the firm’s formal development process • Innovators who operate across all the three phases of innovation
Innovation on Indian railways • The process of innovation: • The systemic process of innovation on Indian railways is structured around the following components: • The technological pursuits of Railway Design and Standards organization (RDSO) (Inventor) • The implementation efforts of the divisional units headed by Divisional railway managers (Implementer) • The scheme of capturing innovative ideas and individualized projects being generated in the field by the Railway staff college (Collector) • The directorate of efficiency and research in the railway board, which monitors and coordinates these activities, which includes their interaction with other institutions. The Innovation promotion group does this job (Champion).
RDSO --INVENTOR Outlay in tenth plan –110 crores; 2006-07 –61 crores
E and R directorate -Champion • The Efficiency and research directorate does not champion the projects for technology innovation nor for identification of potential innovation opportunities through market research. Innovation is one of the many subjects it manages. Perhaps it is a less significant one as the Chairman railway board (CRB) action plan monitoring format does not contain any indicators to assess generation and conversion of potential innovation opportunities at any unit level. There is also no significant output in form of reports as could be seen for benchmarking, CRB’s action plan, or efficiency parameter monitoring (This includes asset reliability data).
Innovation on Indian railways • Indian railways do not seem to focus on the external environment—external to the organization such as changing people preferences, changing customer needs. There seems to be no effort at even identifying different customer segments. There are no projects that focus on such issues. The entire emphasis of innovative activity seems to be directed at achieving cost reduction, ensuring asset reliability and capacity creation.
Innovation on Indian railways • This highly one sided functional orientation in all its activities indicates a predominant “Mechanistic” (Burns and Stalker 1961) orientation. Such an orientation indicates an organization that is used to operating in stable environments where demands exceed supply. Emphasis is on capacity creation and optimization for meeting demand. It also envisages a culture that is extremely function oriented with high levels of specialization and departmentalization and a hierarchic and bureaucratic control system.
Innovation on Indian railways • Disconnect between intent and actions • The allocation for Research and development for RDSO has been increased only in the eleventh plan. Till the tenth plan the average allocation per year was not more than twenty crores (Approach paper to eleventh plan). • There are no technology projects, which look at Supply chain or logistic issues, nor they reflect projects to identify patterns of customer needs through segmentation. The innovation promotion group has not achieved any progress with regard to identification of customer centric opportunities for innovation. The mandate for this group does not seem to reflect this concern.
Innovation on Indian railways • The disconnect seems to continue in the way the roles for Efficiency and research directorate and Railway staff college are envisaged. The Efficiency and research directorate does not champion the projects for technology innovation nor for identification of potential innovation opportunities through market research. Innovation is one of the many subjects it manages. Perhaps it is a less significant one as the Chairman railway board (CRB) action plan monitoring format does not contain any indicators to assess generation and conversion of potential innovation opportunities at any unit level
Innovation on Indian railways • The Railway staff college uses parameters for selection of a project in AMP and MDP courses that constrain it to process and incremental innovations but do not constrain it to be highly functionally oriented. However the prevailing culture among officers in the field units, perhaps, forces selection of projects that are highly functionally oriented and one-dimensional. What happens to these ideas and opportunities identified is unclear but the fact that they do not find mention in the projects under the budgeting process indicates a dead-end for these opportunities.
