创新企业瀚纳仕

瀚纳仕：大型企业应效仿小规模竞争者，锐意创新

要让大型企业重回行业创新者、领导者的位置，摆脱追随者局面，聘用具有创新精神的人才仅仅是其中的举措之一。...

（2016年12月16日，/瀚纳仕/）大型企业已然承认创新的重要性，但事实上创业者和小型企业才是如今的创新先锋，为行业发展制定了新的框架。瀚纳仕首席执行官阿里斯代尔•考克斯（Alistair Cox）表示，要让大型企业重回行业创新者、领导者的位置，摆脱追随者局面，聘用具有创新精神的人才仅仅是其中的举措之一。

Alistair说：“要实现真正的企业创新，首先必须扩大选择范围，在更大的员工群体中培养创新型领导力基因。”

Alistair还表示，大公司缺乏创新的背后涉及多个因素。“方案和计划通常只为企业少数人所决定、掌握，缺乏来自全局的领导力或权威性，并不能激发创新精神。只能一板一眼地按照既定路线走，死撑着，随着时间的流逝而没落。”他说。

“创新并不是一项直接资产，能让你放到自己公司的工具箱或是添加到资产负债表，也不是你决定投资便能预测回报率的东西。”

“真正的创新类似于一种破坏，它可能会扰乱我们的行事方式，或者产生更为实质的影响，甚至是对企业的存在构成威胁和考验。”

Alistair还表示，真正的改变需要时间来完成。“坚持不懈是它的关键属性，通常人们都会认为创业者的特性之一便是他们从哪里跌倒就从哪里站起来的毅力与恒心，他们会从失败中吸取教训并采取新的方式重新努力。”

“但是在企业界，通常，失败并不是大家喜闻乐见的事情。失败的结果很容易招来批判，被认为是一项干扰、是时间与金钱的浪费，毕竟很多企业都是把利润看在首位。”

在这样的情况下，如何才能实现创新呢？

在Alistair看来，企业必须做到以下几点：

1. 设定期望值：明确期望的内容，避免让创新因背负坏名声而被遗忘。务必记住，创新并不一定总是意味着能为生活带来重大改变。

2. 降低目标：Alistair认为，如果你确实希望一项创新投资能带来改变人生的全新服务、产品或业务，那可能你要失望了。但是，创新并不一定总是会破坏整个业务模式。一些最具成效的创新其实都是一些小的改变——在现有系统和流程中增加全新开发内容，而不是全盘替换。

3. 支持型文化：要最大限度地发挥企业的创新功效，关键在于培养进取精神。这非常简单，可能就是给员工广开思路的充分自由。Alistair以Hays为例继续说道，“在Hays，我们让员工行动、处事能‘像经营者一样’，让经理自行落实创新策略，鼓励员工说出自己的思路。”

“要让一家大型的、体制健全的盈利企业冒着导致自身运作的危险实现创新是有难度的，我也承认这一点。”Alistair提到。“但是，这样的企业通常拥有更多的资源来应对这些问题，与刚起步的创业公司相比，他们不用面对集资、招聘、技术发展、市场营销等所有新企业在创立之初都会遇到的问题，更不用费心地去考虑各方平衡。如果这还不算充分的动机，那么在业务和全球关系已然进入不可预测的时代，许多企业都将面临着‘不成功则成仁’的局面。那些不做出真正改变的企业不仅仅会落后他人，而是最终被淘汰出局。”

Big business should follow the lead of smaller competitors and innovate

（Dec.16,2016,/Hays/）Big businesses acknowledge the importance of innovation, but it’s entrepreneurs and smaller businesses that are now innovation leaders and are redesigning the way industries work. That’s according to Alistair Cox, Hays plc CEO, who says that recruiting innovative staff is only one step in the process of bringing big business back to the position of industry innovators and leaders rather than followers.

Alistair says, “A fundamental element of true corporate innovation involves unlocking the entrepreneurial leadership gene in your wider workforce.”

Alistair says there are several factors behind the lack of innovation in big corporations. “These programmes are often secluded in one corner of the business, lack leadership or authority from board level and rather than spark a culture of innovation, simply limp along and then flicker out and die over time,” he says.

“Innovation is not an immediate asset to add to your company toolkit or balance sheet, something you can decide to invest in and predict a return on investment from.

“True innovation is also the close relation of disruption, whether that’s disrupting how we do things or whether it’s more fundamental than that and challenges why our business even exists.”

Alistair also says that real change takes time to develop. “Perseverance is a key attribute here and one of the facets often attributed to an entrepreneur is their ability to bounce back from a failure, learn from it and try again in a different way.

“Yet often in the corporate world, there is little appetite for failure and unsuccessful ventures can easily be criticised as a distraction and a waste of time and money, particularly when the rest of the organisation is working so hard to create that money in the first place.”

So how can innovation be achieved?

According to Alistair organisations must:

1. Set expectations: By making it clear what is expected, innovation can avoid being given a bad name and forgotten about. It is also important to remember that innovation doesn’t always necessarily mean big life changing products.

2. Aim small: According to Alistair, if you truly expect your innovation investment to create a life-changing new service, product or business, you may be disappointed. However, innovation doesn’t always need to disrupt an entire business model. Some of the most effective innovations are small tweaks – new developments that layer on top of existing systems and processes rather than replacing them entirely.

3. A supportive culture: The key to getting the most out of a business in terms of innovation is unlocking the entrepreneurial spirit within a business, which can be as simple as giving staff the freedom to cultivate ideas. Using Hays as an example Alistair says, “Here at Hays, we enable our staff to act ‘like an owner’, allowing managers to implement their own innovative strategies for success and encouraging employees to introduce their own ideas.”

“A lot has been written of the difficulties of a large, established and profitable business disrupting itself and I agree, it is difficult,” notes Alistair. “However, a corporate often has far more resources to tackle these issues than a new start-up that is balancing fundraising with recruitment with tech development with marketing with all the other distractions involved in the early days of a new company. If that isn’t motivation enough, business and global relations are now entering significantly uncertain times, and many businesses will be facing a ‘do-or-die’ phase in which those who don’t commit to driving real change will not just be left behind, but could find themselves out of the race altogether.”