Blog Entry #3

Summary / Overview

Today’s lesson covered two main topics, Industrial Development and Innovation Management. For the first half of the lesson, we discussed issues such as the aspects of Industrial Development. Is Industrial Development always a trade-off with sustainability? Could we possibly adopt a different economic model that would give us both?  Who plays the biggest role in the sustainability of the environment?

The second half of the lesson began with a very interesting video clip. We witnessed what technology has evolved to today, how a person can interact with a computer and feel that she is in another world completely due to realistic nature of that world.  We talked about Prof’s landscape model for technology and the RDA process. We discussed whether innovation should be market driven or technology, and Prof used another interesting video (Andes Tele-transporter) to illustrate how market demand drives certain innovations.

Interesting Ideas / Observations

Linear VS Cyclical Models – Traditional linear models, that we have used previously, brought a trade-off between economic well-being and environmental well-being. But a cyclical approach promises to bring us both. I feel, however, that adopting a cyclical approach is easier said than done.  The government will need to internalize all externalities. This entails, among other measures, imposing taxes on non-environmentally friendly goods and services and subsidizing environmentally friendly ones. Would society, as a whole be welcome to these measures? Would we be alright with paying more for our furniture because of taxes imposed on non-green timber companies? On the company level, the reading “Sustainability for Tomorrow’s Consumer” brought forward several interesting observations. Based on assessments, it was found that resource views of consumption do not align with economic views. In other words, many critical resources are significantly underpriced. If governments were to raise the price of, say water, the effect on society and standards of living would be tremendous. This change may be too great, especially for the poor. On the subject of change, Prof mentioned that during any change process, people would lose power. The fear of losing power hence contributes to the reluctance to change and thus this cyclical model may be difficult to implement in reality.

If it is difficult for governments to intervene, it boils down to…

After the presentation on “Is development and sustainability always a trade off?”, we discussed how much a role should a government play in the sustainability issue. Yes, I agree that taxes and subsidies (the carrot and stick) approach may help alleviate the problem. Firms can strive to innovate in environmentally friendly production techniques, but it all boils down to the consumer. As the consumer, we control the demand and the market for ‘green products’.  The government can only do so much to promote these products and services, if we do not buy these goods and services, the green firms will suffer a loss and eventually perish.

 Measuring our Ecological Footprint – I feel that this is a good idea to put pressure on firms and companies to be environmentally friendly, however I feel that it may be quite impractical. Measuring a product’s ecological footprint would constitute tracking the product’s impact on the environment throughout its entire lifecycle, from production, to utilization, to disposal. It may be difficult to track these products once they have left the four walls of the store. Furthermore, who would enforce such a monitoring system? Having an Environmental Management System can solve this problem, but the EMS, or systems as a whole, suit larger organizations, as it is likely that organization has already developed a similar systemic approach to management processes. It may not be cost efficient for SMEs to start an EMS.

“The trick is doing something else” (Tom Peters) – In conjunction with Prof’s landscape model for technology, I definitely agree with this quote. With the rapid advancement in information technology, for example the internet, we are much closer to having ‘perfect information’ in global industries than before. How then can we save our products from being commoditized and effectively stay at the summit in the long run? From the model, we can either translate cutting edge new technology into reality (cloud to summit) or improve upon and rethink our existing technologies (valley to summit). In other words, keep innovating to maintain an advantage over competitors! In my opinion, translating cloud opportunities into summit opportunities would be more difficult than the latter, but would give you the advantage for a longer period of time. This is because once your firm puts these technologies into the market, other firms would need to develop these technologies from scratch. As opposed to if your firm comes up with a minor improvement of a product, it would not take much for other firms to follow in your footsteps. Hence, we should always strive for completely new and “out-of-the-norm” ideas. In my previous blog entry, I gave the example of Apple as a company that successfully does this. 

How can Singapore do better to be a more innovative nation? – In the light of the ‘3M’ presentation, this question was raised for discussion. I liked the point of lowering the price of failure in Singapore. Yes, I feel that in everything we do, people calculate the cost of failure and analyze if it is worth it to take the risk. I feel that the government can play a big role in this. They could subsidize or invest in more ‘risky’ innovative projects.  Of course, this can go two ways. It may result in more ‘flops’. This raises the need for a proper innovation management system. Secondly, I feel that the government, or organizations, can provide incentives for useful innovations. For example, in the Singapore Armed Forces, people that come up with ideas that can improve the camp facilities are rewarded with a sum of money. Of course, the quality of our ideas boils down to our education and I feel that Singapore is taking a good stand in making primary education compulsory for all Singaporean children.

Market-driven innovations VS Technology driven – As Prof used the video of tele-transporters to illustrate, market-driven innovations are probably more successful due to the fact that there is already a need for the product, which would result in faster revenue.  Spencer reinforced this concept in his presentation when he talked about knowing the consumer, how engineers met the consumers to get to know their needs.

Key Takeaways

1)   In terms of environmental sustainability, we, as the consumers, play a big role. We control the demand for ‘green’ products, so we should all ‘go green’ and switch to more environmentally friendly alternatives today.

2)   We need to look at the big picture. After reading the article “Sustainability for tomorrow’s consumer”, I realized that one mere product, in its lifecycle, may have a bigger detrimental effect on the environment than we realize.  Producing a shirt, for example, may not have a direct impact on the environment. But growing the cotton needed for the shirt uses 6,500 litres of water, and the regular washing of the shirt uses 2,700 litres. According to this same article, if present trends continue, by 2025, 1/3 of the world’s population will be affected by water scarcity.

3)   Keep innovating! – The trick IS doing something else. We should stop doing the norm, start thinking out of the box. If organizations keep differentiating their products, it will be difficult for other organizations to commoditize their products, hence putting them at the ‘summit’ permanently.

4)   From the RDA process, we can see that different people play different roles for the innovation development process. For the dream to become a reality, we all need to master each of our expertise and work together.

Issues for further discussion

1)   Does green technology have any detrimental side effects? It is assumed that green technology will only benefit the environment. In one of the readings, it was mentioned that a dam being built with the intention of harnessing energy from water as a ‘green’ alternative to burning fossil fuels was in turn destroying the natural habitat of many fishes and water animals living there.

2)   How can we promote greater innovation in Singapore – I feel that we could have discussed this question further!

Personal Ratings

8/10. There was more room for discussion, which was really good.