04 May 2016, 22:34 / Management

How large Russian companies can develop innovation

Businesses will first have to overcome four major obstacles

Gulnara Bikkulova , Deputy General Director of the Russian Venture Company (RVC)

Lack of staff. To develop innovation, employees atypical for large businesses are needed—entrepreneurs within large corporations. Such specialists must have knowledge in the field of marketing, technological expertise and leadership experience, must understand what consumers want, etc. It is impossible to quickly change a corporate culture to an entrepreneurial one, so it makes sense to separate innovative activities into pilot projects or special divisions. A good example of this approach is Alfa Bank , which launched the Alfa Laboratory, a special division dedicated to the development of innovative IT and financial products. More than 150 projects of new banking products have passed through Alfa Laboratory, including online and mobile banking, p2p transfers. Former entrepreneurs who became employees of Alfa Laboratory play an active role in the development of the division.

The pace of innovation implementation in large Russian companies is far from world standards. There are four obstacles hampering business, and three of them can be overcome in the medium term.

Lack of a competitive environment. There are very few companies in Russia that really need innovation to develop their business. State corporations actually have no competitors and, as a result, do not face the task of reducing the time frame for releasing new products. Owners of private companies also very often lack the ambition to set serious long-term goals. As soon as goals appear that could be achieved by developing innovations, things will move forward.

I have no idea where to start. It is impossible to innovate today and get concrete results tomorrow. There are four main types of innovation: process innovation, service innovation, product innovation, and strategic innovation. You can start with simpler types. Russian companies have a very large potential for improving processes: mastering new methods of production and working with clients and reorganizing production. They are easier to justify than serious investments in product or strategic innovation.

Inability to use the innovation ecosystem. There are many opportunities in the market to find promising technological developments that require investment. There are many venture capital funds operating; According to development institutes, about 5,000 startups appear in Russia every year. More and more universities are launching technology transfer programs. A large company must, first of all, declare to the market that it is interested in new developments and that people can come to it with ideas. Competitions will help here - for example, the OMZ Cryogenmash group, together with the Alrosa company, is holding the Technostart competition for the fourth time, the purpose of which is to select mechanical engineering and technological projects in the metallurgical and energy fields.

Many international corporations - Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Google - are platforms for the continuous search for innovation within and outside the company. But the transformation of Russian large enterprises into such platforms is not a quick process. In Germany, it took several decades to involve German state-owned companies in innovative activity. The first innovative development programs in Russia appeared only in 2010, but already now individual companies and people are beginning to change the psychology of Russian business. The most important thing is to support them.

The author is Deputy General Director of the Russian Venture Company