The 2007 IBM Business Leadership Forum | AlwaysOn

The 2007 IBM Business Leadership Forum AlwaysOn

A very interesting post about the IBM Business Leadership Forum. In this event, like in others before (Software 2007) and like in the recent Business Week article, Innovation is the key word. There's also a great book and conversation going on about the myths of innovation.

But let's go step by step. In the first post I mention, I like the concepts presented by Sam Palmisano at the opening session. Looks like Globalization and Innovation are two ideas that are converging: The key forces causing the world to converge around the subject of innovation are the realities of globalization. And the three pillars of Globalization from economics to expertise and openness, very well define in my view the process we're living.

The process of globalization started by the economic driver, in search for lower costs, is now followed by the expertise globalization. The access to bigger talent pools that are starting to become much more accessible, due to two factors: mobility and remote working capabilities.

The third factor mentioned, openness, is a good way of defining the idea of inter-operability, not only applied to software, but also to governments.

All this is very good. But why exactly is Innovation the key pillar for everything and how does it in reality relate to globalization? Furthermore, as also identified in the BLF, why is "business model innovation the most important form of innovation"?

The simple answer could very well be a very natural phenomenon: in the world of economic and information flows, the more agents in the field, and the interactions happen amongst them, the more probabilities you have of experiencing change. If we combine the three mentioned factors, economics, expertise and openness, we can perceive that the industries in which not only economic flows but also talent flows can happen, the level of change is accelerating. And this forces the incumbent players to be alert and ready to change if alternative models appear. The truth of the matter is that the higher strategic risk is probably continue too long doing the things that were right in the past.

As usual, how technology is used and how technology companies adapt to the market, is a fantastic way of observing these trends. As the very good report from McKinsey and Sand Hill shows, Software Innovation is ranked as the top priority from software customers, in the form of new products. If customers are saying this, what you can conclude is that they are needing new products to support and maintain their own industrial and organizational innovations. Companies in every industry segments, exposed to the forces of globalization are being forced to innovate. And in this push, they are asking technology companies to provide them with new products to support this race.

In other words, Innovation is fundamental, it is here to stay and it is deeply grounded in the fundamental changes that we're seeing in globalization. The more globalization we have, the more innovation we're going to see because the more changes are going to happen to the structures and ways of doing business.