The concept of innovation is central to the energy and natural resources industry. Innovation has been described as a process that creates a new product, service or idea” (Karlsson 2008).
This definition suggests that innovation is broader than technological advances in terms of engineering or technology but encompasses also changes in management and business practices such as mergers, acquisitions, partnerships etc. In this sense, it can be said that all businesses require some level of innovative activity in order to remain competitive.
When it comes to energy and natural resource companies, innovation is a necessity.
Innovation is important to energy and natural resources companies because it allows them to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. To stay relevant, these companies need to innovate and find new ways of doing things that will provide value for customers. If they fail to innovate, they will be left behind.
The world is changing at a fast pace and the increasing use of technology allows companies to do more with less. This means that if energy and natural resources companies do not keep pace with these changes, then they will lose out on business opportunities. Innovation is also important because it provides more opportunities for growth. Innovation is about building new things and doing new things.
The benefits of innovation are not just limited to increasing a company’s market share and improving its bottom line. It also provides significant social benefits as it helps create jobs, improve productivity and provide better products for customers. When it comes to energy and natural resource companies, innovation is a necessity. These organisations are tasked with finding new resources, extracting them, processing them for use in the market, and then delivering these resources to the market.
It is not easy to innovate effectively, but it is very important.
Any company that wants to grow and stay relevant must be able to create value for customers through innovation. In order to do all of this, companies need new ideas. They need people who can come up with the next big thing that will make it easier for these organizations to get their products to market. An organisation’s ability to innovate is the key to its success. Innovation is what will allow energy and natural resource companies to thrive in a volatile world.
The energy and natural resource sectors are becoming more important to society. There are many reasons as to why this is so:
- The demand for energy from consumers has increased due to an increase in population.
- The demand for energy has increased because technology has developed to a point where the consumption of energy is needed for the production process. For example, some factories require high amounts of electricity in order to function properly.
- The demand for energy will increase due to the rise in technology. For example, new types of products and services, require more energy.
- The demand for energy will increase due to the rise in income and wealth. For example, as a person gets wealthier, they are more likely to purchase goods/services that require large amounts of energy.
Energy and natural resources organisations face unique challenges driving innovation:
The first challenge is the morality of our technology and how we use it. It’s clear that humanity has made some awesome advances in science and engineering over the last century or so, but as these developments are increasingly impacting society on a global scale, now more than ever before in history, they should be considered ethically by humans as well as machines.
Automation is changing businesses from top to bottom (and will continue to do so for decades) and if left unregulated could lead to an abundance of jobs disappearing. However, the true benefit of automation is not so much in the jobs that disappear; it’s how we use our time and energy when there aren’t as many routine tasks to do. We can now focus more on innovation and creativity because machines are doing a lot of the heavy lifting for us.
The second challenge is how we should best use energy and resources to fuel our technology. I think this is the biggest societal problem that humans face today, more so than automation, because it’s a problem of scarcity rather than an abundance of jobs. How to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy resource in a timely fashion, not only because they want to but also because society has demanded it. The issue then becomes one of cost, both in terms of capital costs and environmental impact.
The third challenge is the most important one: how we should best use our time and energy with technology so that we can improve human civilization, now and in the coming decades.
Co-innovation is the key to solving challenges in energy and natural resources. Co-innovation, by definition, is the collaboration of two or more parties to work towards a common goal. By working together in this way, a greater understanding can be achieved as well as fresh perspectives on problems that arise during such collaborations.
Society is like a large orchestra, with each person playing their own instrument. Each person has to play in time and tune to the others around them. Some people are strong in some areas while weak in others, so they are capable of only small contributions on their own.
But when a team of people comes together to work on one project, each person can contribute their own strengths while the whole team works toward a common goal. The final product is many times more powerful than what any individual could have created alone.
That is why many successful companies are formed from the union of a business person and a technical person. Business people dream up great ideas, but they cannot implement them without help. Technical people can understand the details of an idea, but they do not know how to make it into something that will appeal to customers.
The union of a technical person and a business person is a powerful one because it combines the expertise necessary to both conceive and implement an idea. When this happens, the result is always successful. In this way, the success of a person or company is not due to one factor alone. It takes many different people working together toward a common goal in order for something great to be created.
Powerful ideas and new technologies require the work of many people to bring them into existence. Learn more at the new Centre Of Excellence for Asset Intensive Industries.
This article originally featured on Linkedin
