I’ve been abstaining from writing this particular blog because I didn’t really want to tread on any egos. Well, I can’t hold back any longer.

The tipping-point came yesterday, after having heard one too many stories about how important innovation is, but that the resources just aren’t available: Horsefeathers! What load of corporate malarkey. There are two kinds of organizations that institute real and engaging innovation processes:

• Those who are always on the forefront, pro-actively managing for change to drive superior performance
• The walking-wounded who have fear in their eyes and know that it’s now or never

These two profiles make-up a minority of the landscape, leaving the balance to bemoan how they would love to have a dedicated and fully-funded  innovation process but can’t afford the people or the time to do it right. WAKE UP!!! You can’t afford not to have one. As one of our trusted and valued advisors so eloquently puts it: “companies that don’t commit to comprehensive innovation process in earnest are either “fat, dumb and happy”, or, it doesn’t hurt enough yet”. Truer words have never been spoken.

Now if you’re offended by my brand of tough love, you should instead be scared. If you think I’m full of it, you should be doubly-scared. When it comes to business and competition, only one part of the fight-or-flight equation will keep you in the game. So if you want to be the one standing for the twelfth-round bell, get to work. Yes work, innovation requires work – those folks over in the APAC…the ones putting-in 14-hour days who are raising the bar every day – out-producing and soon to be out-innovating Western economies, they get it. They have learned the value of collaborative and open innovation through producing for others (namely us). Now, they are no longer satisfied with contract-production gigs; they have started developing their own brands which will be competing in your space soon – if not already. And for those readers in the service industry who think they are insulated from this threat,  just look at the example of how HSBC has grown to become a bona fide global financial powerhouse in less than two decades. The competition will keep upping the ante whether you have a structured innovation process in place or not - you’re resistance to it doesn’t deter them one bit. In fact, one could successfully argue that it makes it easier for them.

The Silver Lining here is that Western companies are sitting on gold – they have the tools, knowledge and talent to get the innovation job  done. They have the leverage to implement an innovation process that delivers on the promise despite difficult conditions; and they have an ace up their sleeve that the others don’t: a culture…no, a history – an innate tradition of success through innovation. But no one can survive forever sitting on past laurels. It’s time to move interim mantras aside and make innovation the sole battle-cry again. One can only achieve this by committing the necessary  resources to that end.