Now in its fourth edition and spanning 26 countries, the GE Global Innovation Barometer is an international opinion survey of senior business executives actively engaged in the management of their firm's innovation strategy.
The barometer explores how the perception of innovation is changing in a complex, globalised environment. The 2014 results show that South African executives have an overwhelmingly positive perception of the role that innovation plays in society with more than three-quarters of respondents agreeing that people in the country live better than 10 years ago because of the impact of innovation.
"South Africa has long been known as a hotbed of innovation, from the invention of the world's first oil-from-coal refinery to the first heart transplant," said Tim Schweikert, president and CEO of GE South Africa.
"Lately, a renewed focus has been placed on inspiring and supporting innovation across the country. New programmes and forums have been established by government, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), private sector companies have invested in local innovation centres and organisations such as The Silicon Cape Initiative have cropped up to support budding entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The drive for innovation across South Africa has never been greater."
The majority of South African executives surveyed point to smaller businesses, such as SMEs and start-ups, as the key drivers of innovation in South Africa - more so than their peers in other parts of the world - while 88% agree that collaboration with start-ups and entrepreneurs will drive innovation success in the future, compared to 85% globally.
To enable innovation, business is looking to the government to continue increasing the support it provides to SMEs and to create an environment to enable cross-border research. The recent creation of the Ministry of Small Business Development, mandated to create an 'enabling environment' in which small businesses can flourish, shows that government is purposefully moving towards this goal.
"Innovations in science and technology have helped to bridge many of the social gaps created during apartheid. Many South Africans now have, for the first time in their lives, access to clean water, sanitation and electricity," said Minister Naledi Pandor, Ministry of Science and Technology. "The Department of Science and Technology is committed to bringing together individuals and organisations with a passion for innovation to support and nurture this critically important work."
"This study is exciting as it clearly demonstrates a willingness among the private sector, not only to identify new processes, but also to build new partnerships with SMEs and entrepreneurs to drive innovation in South Africa," added Minister Pandor.
Nearly all (96%) of executives in South Africa agree that innovation is increasingly becoming a global game, merging and combining talents, ideas, insights and resources across the world is the only way to be successfully innovative. While there are obvious risks to collaboration, more than three-quarters of executives say that collaborating is a risk worth taking if you want to innovate successfully nowadays.
As a result, most executives report that revenue generated by collaborative innovation activities has been growing over the last year, though there is still a call to reinforce IP to protect the product of innovative collaboration.
Debate continues on the most appropriate framework and process to encourage innovation, but South African executives demonstrate a greater appetite for creativity and spontaneity compared to their global counterparts.
However executives are divided as to how to inspire innovation, just over half (51%) believe that the most successful innovations are planned and driven through a structured process. Others (49%) feel that innovation emerges spontaneously through the interactions of creative individuals. This differs from the global average that sees 62% of executives looking to structured programmes to provide innovation.
South African executives see big data as the silver bullet of innovation. The vast majority of South African executives believe that big data is critical to understanding customers and anticipating market evolution, while almost two-thirds of business leaders in South Africa believe that it is critical to use the 'predictive knowledge' gained from the analysis of big data to innovate successfully. South African executives are well above the global average in believing that they are ready to make the most out of big data.
While South African executives are exceedingly positive about the role of innovation in moving the country forward, they also highlight challenges. In addition to regulatory hurdles, business leaders highlight lack of talent, global scale up and investment as key issues that are limiting innovation.
