Companies Are Failing To Innovate.

PRLog (Press Release) - Sep 05, 2006 -
Many companies are missing exciting opportunities to innovate according to Professor Colin-Coulson Thomas, author of ‘Shaping Things to Come’: “People are copying others rather than pioneering, exploring and discovering.”

Speaking to members of the Institute of Directors at the University of Lincoln, the Professor argued that “Innovation rather than ‘me-too’ approaches are generally the route to market leadership. Asking the right questions and tenacity in seeking answers are the keys to success.”

The Professor’s investigations reveal that every company examined has missed multiple opportunities to differentiate, improve performance and generate additional revenues by better exploiting corporate know-how. According to Coulson-Thomas “many of the companies visited could be much more profitable and many times larger.”

Coulson-Thomas believes many boards are asleep on the job: “In most companies only a handful of twenty categories of corporate know-how are exploited. We have identified over three dozen areas in which new knowledge based businesses could be established and over thirty categories of learning support services which training functions alone could provide. The scale of the missed opportunity is astounding.”

“Boards need to turn corporate organisations into incubators of new enterprises,” says Professor Coulson-Thomas, “Innovators challenge conventional thinking and question current practices. Rather than looking over their shoulders at others and playing ‘catch up’ they shape the future.”

The Professor warns: “There are ten essential freedoms that boards need to establish if people within their organisations are to become more entrepreneurial. The first of these is the freedom to dream, aspire, build and create.” His book ‘Shaping Things to Come’* is designed to help entrepreneurs create distinct offerings, establish new markets and provide customers with additional choices.

*‘Shaping Things to Come, strategies for creating alternative enterprises’ and ‘Individuals and Enterprise, creating entrepreneurs for the new millennium’ by Colin Coulson-Thomas can be ordered from Blackhall Publishing (Tel: 00 353 1 2785090; Fax: 00 353 1 2784446; email: blackhall@eircom.net) or from www.ntwkfirm.com/bookshop

Professor Coulson-Thomas has helped over 100 boards to improve board or corporate performance. He is the author of some 40 books and reports and has spoken at over 200 major conferences in approaching 30 countries. He can be contacted by Tel: 00 44 (0) 1733 361 149; Fax: 00 44 (0) 1733 361 459; email: colinct@tiscali.co.uk and via www.coulson-thomas.com.