What do we mean by innovation skills?
How does a firm develop an “innovation capacity”? By investing in its human resources.
In a knowledge-based economy, a firm’s competitiveness and ultimate success will increasingly
depend on its ability to find highly-skilled people. Education, today, is the critical input. As one
report notes: “In the 1950s, when three in five workers had no training or particular professional
expertise, education was considered superfluous; today, the one worker in five who does not have an
education is at a serious disadvantage compared with those who do.”2
New and emerging technologies are rapidly changing skill requirements for many jobs. Highly-skilled
workers are increasingly in demand—not only at the high end of the labour force and in high-tech
industries, but also in all sectors including resource-based industries—and there is pressure to
continually update skills. “Lifelong learning” has become part of our vocabulary.
Firms today require a diverse set of skills to manage the overall innovation process and to carry out
innovative activities. The following are a few examples:
- New Product Development/Commercialization Skills (i.e., idea generation, prototype development);
- Research and Development Skills (core science and technology capabilities, identification of
commercialization opportunities);
- Productivity Improvement Skills (adoption of new and/or leading-edge technology; process
improvement);
- Innovation Partnering Skills (building SME-university linkages for R&D; locating venture
capital funding);
- Technology Management Skills (using information and communications technologies for technical
processes; ability to develop new products based on market demand); and
- Innovation Human Resources Development Skills (recruiting and retaining highly-qualified
innovation personnel; training and skills development for technology managers and workers).
Visualizing the innovation process
Innovation is a complex process. Here’s one way to visualize the key components of innovation
(See Figure 1) where the innovative firm is the nucleus, surrounded by key elements that make
innovation happen.
And finally...
are innovative
companies profitable?
Skills development is costly, no doubt about it. SMEs in Atlantic
Canada often don’t invest in training because of a lack of
money to do so. Yet research shows that investment in
human resources pays off.
In Statistics Canada’s Survey of Innovation 1999, close
to 60 per cent of manufacturers, including resourcebased
manufacturers, reported that innovation
increased the profitability of the firm. Another
study found a high rate of failure of companies in
the service industry, and reported: “Firms that do
not innovate are frequently replaced by new ones
that have new or improved products or employ
more efficient methods of production and
delivery.”4
A more important question to ask might be this:
Will companies survive in today’s global economy
if they’re not innovative; if they’re not willing to
invest in human resources?
In the following pages, we profile nine Atlantic Canadian
companies, all of which are very successful. As you will
read, their raison d’être is innovation. In all nine companies,
it’s what they do. It’s their reason for existing. If they didn’t
innovate on a regular and ongoing basis, they would cease to exist. A
key element in all these companies is a willingness, indeed an urgency,
to invest in their people to maintain state-of-the-art knowledge and skills
within the company. Because experience has proven that it is worth it!
Is innovation profitable? Read on.
