By Scott Bellows
In sitting around a conference table with colleagues pondering the most innovative organisations in the world, ideas conjured up would likely include Google, Apple, Safaricom, Facebook, Tesla, Amazon, Alibaba, etc. What do all these firms have in common? They all represent for-profit companies.
Google’s simplified unique search innovation propelled to global dominance. Apple’s touchscreen concept revolutionized phone handsets. Safaricom’s M-Pesa and M-Shwari changed how the world saw financial payments technology. Tesla launched the electronic car competition craze among automobile makers. Amazon disrupted retail distribution chains. Alibaba took ecommerce to multi-industry dominance.
Many researchers highlight that the profit motive and lower bureaucracy in such organisations makes them more responsive to creativity and innovation than non-profit, NGO, parastatal, and government entities.
However, populaces around the globe demand more from their governments. Demands include transparency, controlling inflation, corruption crackdowns, political representation, and better more innovative government services in the digital age, among others, with citizens in many countries from Lebanon to Chile to Hong Kong to Catalonia to Ecuador protesting openly.
But one can see in places like Estonia with nearly all government services accessible online and free public transportation or the Dutch government’s management of Schiphol Airport widely seen as innovative, that at times governments can lead in innovation…Read more>>
