Tag: Innovation

Competition drives innovation

An unforgettable lesson on the need to avoid protectionism, told by Joe Atikian in the Globe and Mail, USA Competition in an advanced economy leads to more science, more advanced engineering and better products. That lesson should have been fully ingrained in the 1950s, when Russia beat the United States into space and permanently retained the …

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CBI rides to the rescue

Having exchanged pleasant words about my new book Productivity Knowhow with the CBI’s Director General, Carolyn Fairbairn, and members of her team, I chanced upon a report they had written, entitled: FROM OSTRICH TO MAGPIE  In it, they:  “Set out to find new ways to tackle the striking variation in productivity that exists between UK firms …

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Japan falls down productivity ladder

Back in the 80s, the West was besotted by the miracle performance levels of Japan’s manufacturing sector and mistakenly concluded that TQM – Total Quality Management – and ‘culture change’ was their secret Actually, it was mostly due to good performance measures, use of basic statistics and common sense in finding best ways to meet …

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Has innovation really peaked?

US economist Robert Gordon gets a lot of publicity these days for his dismal view that ‘technological innovation is declining in pace and impact compared to those of the 20th century’ – all set out in his book ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’ His whole thesis is based on economic growth statistics, GDP …

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AI to spark a new productivity boom?

A new productivity boom could be sparked by AI – Artificial Intelligence? Who says so? No less than two UK government ministers Culture Secretary Karen Bradley says: “AI has the potential to improve our everyday lives” – precisely what productivity improvement is all about And Business Secretary Greg Clark claims: “Huge social and economic benefits AI …

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The coming productivity boom

Why is the American economy not as productive as it used to be? Why is US GDP growth below 2% per annum, well short of the 3.5% it averaged before the Great Recession of 2008? Bret Swanson, President of Entropy Economics, and Michael Mandel, an economist, believe ‘the long productivity drought is almost over, as …

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AI becoming mainstream in Retail

Expert systems to aid human and plant maintenance and clever OR (Operations Research) computer models (aka apps) to find optimum solutions to complex business problems have been around for over 50 years now AI (Artificial Intelligence) is just the latest moniker for much the same, albeit more powerful Retail Week recently published an article about …

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The following sweeping pearls of wisdom are 100% from Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum I could not, indeed would not dare, try to improve on them but they surely deserve to be widely read We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way …

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Digital investment benefits need time

An interesting article from IoT Agenda explores why digital investment in increasingly capable devices/ things/ solutions are empowering businesses to transform their processes and workflows but not yet showing up in real productivity gains One theory is ‘the metrics used are suspect’ – however, the author sides with another The rapid evolution in transformative technologies …

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Five forces to reshape civilisation by 2030

Peter Morici, economics professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, USA, recently published some interesting views on changes he expects world-wide by 2030: A reworking of democracy – Democratic societies outperformed all others in the 20th century – however, recent populism (ideas which appeal to ordinary people) has led their governments to …

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CEOs rate potential of new technology ‘very low’!

A new Gartner survey of 388 CEOs/ senior executives found they rated as “very low” the potential for productivity improvement from new breakthrough technologies such as IoT, AI, blockchain (secure databases) and 3D printing In particular, when asked for their ‘top enabling technology for improving productivity’: Only 2% chose IoT – and only 1% picked either …

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The capitalist’s dilemma

N.B. The following are extracts from an article published in the Harvard Business Review in June, 2014 – it remains highly relevant today Professor Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever of Harvard Business School  have embarked on a fascinating study into what may be holding back growth in the USA and elsewhere given ‘corporations are …

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Full AI impact may take time

Erik Brynjolfson, an MIT economics professor, says: “We are optimistic about the ultimate productivity growth fuelled by AI and complementary technologies The real issue is that it takes time to implement changes in processes, skills and organisational structures to fully harness AI’s potential as a GPT (General Purpose Technology)”   Benefits from specific applications are …

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