THE OTHER SIDE OF INNOVATION

My this blog is about the other side of innovation with particular reference to Information Technology. No doubt, in a globalized open economy, innovation plays a major role for companies to surge forward. The slogan today is “innovate or perish”. Research shows that the word ‘innovation’ is the highest used one by corporates in their reports and business communications.

For the IT industry, innovation is a continuous affair. The specifications of software, hardware and services keep changing. By the time an IT device is bought and installed, it becomes obsolete. If it were 2 GHz today, it would be 2.8 GHz tomorrow. If it were version 8 today, it would be version 9 tomorrow. To keep up with the constant innovation, people go for upgrades, and that continuously create hole in the pocket. Using the technological obsolescence alibi, technology companies arm-twist the users, and that hurts. Before taking the yield out a technology investment, a new one appears, creating incompatibility between the new and existing hardware, software and applications. The customers and the users have no option but to invest again, either to upgrade or to go for the new one. These hi-tech companies also play with each other in tandem, as complimentors. For e.g. when Intel Coprp launches a processor with a new technology, Microsoft company announces the incompatibility of the existing OS with the new one. So it is a new OS that the customer pays for and brings in. When the new OS comes, the existing application software needs to be upgraded so as to work with that. He invests again for the new version of the application software. Before he takes a breath, Intel is back again, with another GHz revolution. Innovation goes on. Investment too. The hole in the pocket becomes larger and larger

I am glad that the debate had begun. The stakeholders, management and the academics are asking questions now. The lead question is, where is the return on technology investment (ROTI)? Often companies realize that continuous investment in technology is not bringing in major tangible benefit in topline or bottomline, that is commensurate with the investment. Yes, it increases convenience and comfort and reduces form factor and size but does not impact much in the profit earning capability of the companies. Generally, the improvement in convenience and comfort make man only lazy and his dependence on technology is increased. Of course, technology moves things faster but so does it increase the stress factor.

We cannot stop the innovation from happening. But we should take a guarantee that the products, solutions and services that we buy must serve us steady for a considerable duration of time, without frequent major upgradations that require further investment on it. Organizations must get the full yield of the technology before it start to re-invest.

This really calls for the technology to mature so that it can serve long-term . The mute question is, will it ever happen in our time?