Where to find Innovation?

These days heard a lot of people talking about innovation. Almost 50% of seminars in recent months are relate to the topic of green sustainability.

As the nation's energy demands continue to grow, so will the role that the renewable energy industry will play in the coming years. Government policies, such as the federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and more importantly, its Mandatory Renewable Energy Target will certainly help drive growth in this sector. It’ll take awhile for any emissions trading scheme to come into full effect.

Government’s renewable energy targets of 20 percent of Australia’s energy needs met by clean energy generation by 2020.

Australia is particularly exposed in this area due to most of its emissions coming from carbon intensive coal-fired power stations.

To meet this demand, a large amount of new capacity will need to be built over the coming years which will mobilize about $20 billion in investment.

The current global financial crisis certainly put a dampener on this outlook. The contraction in the capital market is going to play a very big role in the amount of new wind farms and hydro projects that we can build.

As the mining sector has been hit particularly hard by the economic slowdown, the costs of building new projects in the next few years could come down substantially as competing demand from the mining sector reduces.

The challenge is to come out the other end of the financial crisis in better shape than we went in and be set up to make a substantial leap forward.

The capital constraints in the lending sector mean ‘bad businesses’ will be weeded out and companies that have a good track record for delivering what they promise will actually come out ahead.

The so-called global financial crisis is in fact a blessing for humanity. We are now going to tackle the big issues – the causes of our problems rather than just the symptoms. Without the global financial crisis we may never have got that insight.

You shall build your Green house which save you up to 50% on your energy and water bills, at the meantime, reduce greenhouse gas and waste. So cut energy use, be waterwise and waste less, act sustainably right now! Use hybrid instead of petrol for your car. Add solar to the list and earn free cash.

Innovation has never been more important to companies as it is now. The recession is creating new needs and new forms of value are needed to fulfill them. Yet there remains a yawning gulf between business leaders’ rhetoric on innovation and the reality on the ground. So what holds our companies back, and why is breakthrough innovation so rare?

Here are five factors that prevent successful innovation.

An intolerance of failure. According to expert innovators, Tom Peters, ‘Nothing works first time’, so if you cannot accept failure you are unlikely to see too much innovation, no matter how much money you throw at it.

For this cause, I recommend the little black book of entrepreneurship by Fernando Trias De Bes. A contrarian's guide to succeeding where others have failed. This book is for anyone who is interested in setting up a business.

An excessive customer focus. People are poor predictors of their own future behaviour. Entrepreneurs should take market research and evaluates new ideas in order to help take informed risks and not as a simple yes/no exercise.

Fantasy of miracle or desire for a magic pill. Innovation is an isolated change program. Enterprise should allow its developers to spend a proportion of their time on their own development projects as a way of encouraging a stream of bottom-up ideas.

An unwillingness to cannibalise sales. The only way to prolong success is, paradoxically, to destroy it and create something even more valuable. Technology companies know that they must consistently add new features at lower prices if they want to stay ahead in the market. The same principles are true in other markets.

A reliance on a small cadre of innovators. Relying on a small development team to identify, create and deliver game-changing innovations is unrealistic. You have to cast your net much wider. Entrepreneurs should be willingly to work with external organisations and develop its new growth ideas through these external networks.

How many of these factors are present in your company? Once you are willing to welcome failure, lead rather than follow customers, involve your whole organization and beyond, cannibalise your existing businesses and see innovation as a way of life, you’re likely to make real and material progress.