Transparency is also vital to the potentials for innovation a company has. Advances in innovation are usually less attributable to major leaps forward than to a continuous, adaptive process. Many small innovative steps are what yield decisive progress in innovation. The employees of a company offer an essential source of innovation, and their potential is far from being fully utilized. They are the closest to customers and the production processes. They know and constantly find out what could be done better, differently or in a new way. Their analysis of purchase behavior is crucial to competition.

IT greatly helps the company to uncover this treasure trove of knowledge and to evaluate and make use of it. Appropriate solutions enable innovation challenges to be discussed and processed simultaneously and continuously by large numbers of people. They also let concrete proposals and ideas be systematically recorded and dealt with and ensure the existence of clever incentive systems for innovation. IT does more than just provide tools. It also makes available the necessary transparency so that innovation can be demanded and provided “from the bottom up.” In many cases, innovation is attributable to the “wisdom of the many.” Appropriate IT applications are the only alternative for rendering this wisdom recordable and usable. They must put the internal employee suggestion system, for instance, in a systematic and easily evaluated format. Read more →

Well into the 20^th century, we were confronted with companies with production processes that had not changed for decades. Certain crafts and trades were—and are—proud that their processes for making certain products have remained unchanged for extended periods of time. Things are still the same today as they were a century ago. Many might hope that things will remain the same in the future. Then that would mean they do not have to adjust, do not have to demonstrate innovative powers and can simply remain in the same old production rut as before. And they can sell their products at high prices and, if possible, without unpleasant competition.

Were it not for globalization, that is, the much-discussed process whereby the world is growing closer together economically. It serves as a prosperity generator and has freed entire regions—large parts of Asia, for instance—from poverty and dependence. However, it does have the unpleasant side-effect of globalized competition.   Competitors can pop up from anywhere with the same products or better ones. Most importantly, they can charge much more favorable prices for the same products or even for better ones. This new globalized situation with competition offers new opportunities yet also creates uncertainty for businesses. They can no longer be certain that things will be the same tomorrow as they are today. Read more →

The history of technology shows us that the history of information technology and economic history were and still are closely related to each other. The examples range from the mechanical calculator Blaise Pascal invented in 1645 for decimal addition and subtraction to the Colossus computer Alan Turing built in 1936, from the Arpad Net that went into operation in 1969 to the development of the Word Wide Web and its interactive, participatory version, Web 2.0, as well as social media.

All these innovations were directly reflected in economic events, with the innovations of the present and future naturally being put to commercial use at ever faster rates of speed. The interplay between technical innovations and their economic utilization involves a tremendous dynamism. The path from innovation to marketable product is becoming ever shorter. One reason for this is that market economy style competition has increased worldwide. The demand for technological powers of innovation is also rising steadily. The international competition among business locations for growth and prosperity is ultimately a competition for innovative strength. Read more →