Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/884700
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2017 41 This Week ANGELE DE MESQUITA Head of Governance, Risk & Compliance at NetRefer AS a title it might seem contra- dictory to what the Malta In- novation Summit stands for but bear with me a few more minutes and I will explain. NetRefer is a company like many others, which in recent years has felt the need to inno- vate. As many others we realized that innovation is not a thing, it cannot be bought. It is not about fancy new offices, brightly paint- ed walls and billiard tables in the canteen (yes we're guilty of those too). Rather than that innova- tion is a mindset. Innovative ideas come from everywhere and more often than not, the most brilliant ideas come from your employees. A lot of work, effort and invest- ments is done by companies and individuals alike to foster this mindset, so why does it some- times fail? Is it the wrong thing to do? The answer is no, it is the right thing to do, but it is not the only step on the journey towards innovation. The mistake is stop- ping there, bathe in your own success and not pushing forward to implement step 2. A cliché perhaps, but talk is cheap. Bring together passion- ate individuals around a table over coffee or some drinks and you can be sure that ideas will flow aplenty. What happens af- ter the discussion though is cru- cial. Ideas need to be captured, mulled over, prodded and poked, eventually also managed. This is what is becoming known as in- novation Management and is the crucial step on the road to a suc- cessful innovative company. Note that I have purposely avoided using the words prod- uct. Innovation and innovation management is not about cut- ting edge technology, invent- ing something new or building a new software, although this is what it is most commonly asso- ciated with. Innovation is not on the books only for tech compa- nies or scientists, it is wider than that. How a service is provided can also be innovative. Take Uber, a taxi service without own- ing one single car. AirBnB pro- vides holiday accommodation without owning any property. How about company operations? Office less companies, where all the workforce works from home remotely. All the above were once ideas. Ideas which were captured, re- searched and analysed before successfully being taken to mar- ket. The process or gap between idea generation and implement- ing the idea to take it to market is the missing step, the reason why so many fail. During my time at NetRefer, my focus has always been on processes. On establishing the acceptable parameters of how things should be done within the company. Couple that with Ne- tRefer's drive for innovation and getting out of it's comfort zone we slowly realized that ideas and innovation need to be managed. Once the innovative mindset was achieved, ideas started to flow, ideas that were captured from our very own employees, our own in house intrapreneurs. We are yet in the process of discovery and learning the best way to let ideas flourish, sift through them, conduct market research and feasibility analysis through the implementation of structured processes. One could say we are on step 2 of our jour- ney towards Innovation manage- ment, looking forward to select a number of those ideas and take them to market. The Malta Innovation Sum- mit was our response to bring together people from all walks of life and learn more about this crucial step on this journey we have embarked on. Whilst I hope that this article has provided you, dear reader with value and understanding, I urge you to join us at the Malta Innovation Sum- mit on the 13th of October to learn more. Why innovation fails