Of all organizational processes, that of innovation would seem to be the least amenable to use of IT, since IT is usually applied to workflows that are orderly, repeatable and given to formal specification. However, as Steve Gordon and I have found out in studies from over 40 companies, IT has a significant role to play in helping innovators in their tasks and the firm to increase the returns from its innovation portfolio.
In order to accomplish innovation, R&D folks need to tap certain capabilities. They can do so by combining the resources at their disposal in ways that are not easily imitable. For example, every corporate R&D department has a history and archive of previous projects, technical know-how, market trends and success-failure stories. But how many can claim to have organized this potentially priceless store into a knowledge management system than is accessed and updated by innovators so that they can effectively utilize the firm’s memory for identifying promising projects or solving problems? We find that inspite of the plethora of knowledge management systems existing in many firms, innovators either do not use them or do not substantially benefit from them. The capability to manage knowledge then, is important to make it easy for innovators to execute their tasks. We find that IT, that is the technology itself and the IT department, can help companies develop a number of capabilities that are required for effectively accomplishing innovation tasks (Tarafdar and Gordon 2007, Gordon and Tarafdar 2010).
To read the full, original article click on this link: Five Capabilities that Support Innovation: How can IT help? « Au Fond
Author: Monideepa
