Theerathon Tharachai Director of Research and Business Development, Property Perfect
As I mentioned in my last article for The Nation a month ago, innovation can create competitive advantages and can make those who were the followers of yesterday the leaders of today. If you are among those who believe innovation can make a difference, you will be interested in how to enhance innovative initiative in a real-estate company.
There are many factors that affect the degree of success in initiating innovation in the real-estate industry. Some factors developers can control, but some they cannot. However, for those uncontrollable factors, they still can manage them.
Most of those you cannot control are external factors. One of the most powerful external factors is "customers". The degree of acceptance of new technology, knowledge and consumer demand play key roles in forcing developers to innovate or prevent certain innovations. If the degree of acceptance is low, developers have to work hard to educate the market. On the other hand, if consumer preference changes, developers that can adjust to those changes first will be the ones who gain market share.
Another important external factor that has a direct bearing on innovation is business partners, such as construction material manufacturers and contractors. The old way of doing business was confrontation among businesses in the supply chain, where each entity was trying to maximise its benefit. The new world is now about collaboration among multiple players in the supply chain. Collaboration makes information more transparent and allows significant room for innovation.
There are more external factors that can impact on innovation such as the law and regulations, government policies, academic and professional institutions, national culture and social values, influencers and also crises. Nevertheless, let's focus on what we have direct control over, which are internal factors. I also would like to focus on certain critical factors.
When we talk about "internal factors", we mean inside the corporate boundaries. There is a lot more you can do to make your company innovative.
What is probably one of the most important factors is corporate culture. Corporate culture takes a long time to form; however, it is difficult to change. A corporate culture that encourages constructive argument and collaboration among departments enhances innovation.
Corporate cultures should promote new ideas and not penalise failure when the new ideas are in trial. Another crucial point is commitment to innovation. Despite the degree of success, a corporation should never become complacent. Those that always hunger for improvement, and realise its urgency, are always more motivated to innovate than those who are satisfied with the status quo.
Therefore, innovative initiation should be mandatory, not elective. Innovative executives allocate enough resources to research and development and related innovation initiation. Resources include money, time, technology and human resources. We should never forget that technology alone cannot drive innovation. It always comes down to people - those who initiate and implement innovation and those who determine the success of any initiative.
If you want to enhance innovation, you should start by thinking along the following lines:
lThink "proactive" (not reactive) about consumer demand,
lThink "collaboration" (not confrontation) along the supply chain,
lThink "commitment" (not casualness) from all people throughout the company,
lThink "people" (not technology) with the right skills, attitude and energy.
As we already know that innovation is crucial to a company's success, we should also be aware that innovation implementation has equal importance.
