PJL-30

There is no innovation without results

We have noticed that in the pages of this Journal we often speak about innovation.

Maybe we speak about it too much. And excess, in the end, makes a term lose meaning and strength. When everything is labeled as “innovation”, we risk missing the notion of what is actually innovative.

According to Peter Drucker, one of the gurus of management theory, innovation is “a change that creates a new dimension of performance.” And the official definition given by the British Ministry of Industry is “the effective exploitation of new ideas.”

These definitions take us to the core of the issue: there is no innovation without results. Without a demonstration of its economic efficacy – whether this be shown through a measurable improvement in productivity, quality, in a competitive advantage or in market share – a product, a process or a practice cannot be defined innovative, even though it may indeed be new.

A creative idea is just the basis and the requirement for innovation. But in order to promote innovation, we must work on creative ideas in order to generate a tangible difference, quantifiable and recognizable in the status quo.

Confusing, as is often done, the invention – or the mere novelty – with innovation distracts us from what is a fundamental concept for every business organization: innovation is what nourishes the activity of a business, because without innovation there is no growth.

And it is precisely on the basis of this consideration that we would like to initiate a global reflection on the pages of the Perini Journal, on the concept of innovation, on the processes that promote it and on what, in our field, has truly represented an innovation in the recent past.

In the meantime, we promise greater caution in the use of the term.

 

Walter Tamarri

Editor-in-Chief

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