Monday, November 24, 2008

Economic uncertainty the best time for innovation

The economic uncertainty is making companies and people to hold on to what they have (sustain until the dark cloud pass) and think of growth when things improve. The first approach that individuals and companies take in such situations is to manage cost by doing cost-cutting. Cost-cutting in my opinion is ok if one clearly identifies that cutting-costs has minimum or no effect on the outputs and deliverables while maintaining quality and time commitment.
Cost-cutting helps in avoiding the issue for sometime, but not overcome the situation. In situation like these innovation is the need of the hour. Innovating at every steps and at all levels needs to be promoted. Innovation by nature would also mean one has to take certain amount of risks. Not taking risk would mean not moving forward and not moving forward would mean staying still, which leads to decay in time and eventual death for the company. Hence, individuals and corporates need to take the path of innovation by taking calculated risks to create opportunity for new business and growth.