Lawrence Chong’s segment titled “Spark an Innovation Revolution to Shape the World” opened the session at the third Smart SME Seminar, organised by the SME Centre @ Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SME Centre @ SMCCI) on 25 Sep 2013 to 150 SME leaders. Part of the Smart SME Seminar Series, the networking talk “Innovate to Differentiate” was organised for SMEs to understand the benefits and urgent need of innovation and how SMEs can innovate to differentiate in a crowded market place.
According to Chong, the three reasons a company fails to profit from innovation includes:
- No Purpose, resulting in a lack of a fighting spirit within the company
- Poor Culture, which means there is no unity and thus little collaboration amongst the staff
- No Discipline, thus there is no results
Many company cultures do not support the innovation needed to shape the world and usually need an innovation coach as they are not disciplined to do it on their own. The innovation coach distills the company purpose, puts into place processes to encourage and grow new ideas and builds up team capabilities for implementation of the new ideas.
Lawrence Chong said that it’s not about the size of the company that limits innovation, as companies can leverage on software to help them tap on the immerse value of data.
This talk was covered in Berita Harian, entitled “Peniaga diperingat fahami tujuan di sebalik inovasi” (translated version):
Mr Lawrence Chong, CEO at Consulus Pte Ltd, explained that most companies do not know the purpose behind innovation and they do it just to get more revenue.
“We have to understand that innovation is not about how much you can afford to spend but what motivates you to innovate. When this purpose is clear, the effort will be more effective.
“For example, one of our clients produced a device for the hearing impaired, the product was considered innovative but its size was quite large.
“The product was targeted for Asian market, but the product is not marketable because Asians are generally embarrassed to be seen using a listening aid, especially such a large one. At the end of the day, that innovation became meaningless,” he said.
“Innovation becomes critical to a company when there are trends that threaten the traditional way of doing business or traditional businesses,” Chong added.
Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif Consulus Pte Ltd, Encik Lawrence Chong, menjelaskan kebanyakan firma tidak tahu apakah tujuan di sebalik inovasi dan melakukannya semata-mata untuk mendapatkan pendapatan lebih besar sahaja.
“Kita harus fahamkan bahawa inovasi itu bukan tentang berapa banyak yang and mampu belanjakan tetapi apakah yang mendorong anda berinovasi. Apabila tujuan ini jelas, maka usaha itu akan lebih berkesan.
“Misalnya, seorang pelanggan kami menghasilkan alat mendengar untuk golongan pekak, yang rekaannya dianggap inovatif tetapi agak besar apabila dipasang di telinga.
“Produk itu disasarkan kepada pasaran Asai jadi saya menegur mereka mengatakan ia tidak mungkin disambut baik kerana umumnya pengguna Asai lebih malu mahu memakai alat mendengar terlalu besar. Akhirnya, inovasi itu tidak bermakna,” katanya.
Tambah Encik Chong lagi, usaha inovasi menjadi kritikal untuk sesebuah syarikat apabila timbulnya trend-trend yang boleh mengancam cara perniagaan atau peniaga tradisional.
