PODCAST: Innovation Panel Discussion "Oxygen for sustainable firms of the future?"
On May 15 2019, Amer Iqbal (APAC Head of Digital Transformation, Facebook) participated in a panel discussion in Singapore alongside Stephanie Nash (Chief People Officer, ChapmanCG) and Dr Mark Hon (Entrepreneur and Investor, Founder of Sugar Venture Capital).The discussion was part of an event titled "Oxygen For Sustainable Firms Of The Future? Human Potential Vs Innovation" hosted by Panarchy Partners.
Questions posed to the panel
Q1.Deloitte surveyed 133 Chief Innovation Officers and when asked to assess their current innovation capability, a quarter said their organizations’ innovation capabilities are non-existent and 41 percent said they are currently building these capabilities.Only 11 percent assessed their current innovation capabilities as excellent or leading. I’m pretty surprised by these numbers as we seem to read daily how much money is being invested into the area of innovation at the moment.What do you think the barriers are within an organization with regards to expanding their capabilities within innovation? Q2. When we look at one of our portfolio companies Bank of Nova Scotia we were really impressed by their initiative to invest CAD$250 million over the next decade to help their employees adapt to the digital economy. But when you compare this to the billions of dollars spent on innovation, the investment into future-skilling human capital seems like a drop in the ocean.What are the barriers within an organisation to investing in this area and are the leading MNCs doing enough with regards to future-skilling their workforce? Q3. We’ve spoken about human capital and innovation separately but, ultimately, we humans control innovation as we create, design and implement innovation within an organisation.How do you think organisations should incentivize or create structures around innovation within an organization – with regards to KPIs, bonuses?Or perhaps you think they shouldn’t bother and they should look at innovation externally through M&A or other means? Q4. As an outsider looking in, how would you evaluate an organisation’s strategy and ‘preparedness’ to with regards to nurturing its assets human capital and innovation in creating a sustainable future?What questions should investors be asking the management teams?