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Displaying 1-30 of 88 results
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AI in retail: Cutting-edge solutions for modern challenges
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- 16 Jul 2024
- Shelby Hiter
In today's hyper-competitive retail landscape, retailers are increasingly using AI to gain advantage. AI can enhance retail operations in a growing number of ways including boosting customer engagement, improving sales and marketing strategies, optimising inventory management, streamlining supply chains and providing advanced data analytics and insights. A range of AI tools and technologies for retailers are explored with examples of how leading brands are using AI.
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Half empty, or half full?
- Article
- 01 Apr 2024
- Daniel hood
The article provides an overview of the current state of the accounting profession, offering perspectives from senior leaders of top accounting firms. These leaders acknowledge that the profession is facing both challenges and opportunities. They discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of technological advancements and the shortage of accountants. Despite these challenges, firm leaders believe that overcoming them will lead to success. They also emphasize the positive economic environment and the chance to provide more valuable services and embrace innovation. Some leaders even suggest re...
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Noted leader underscores the necessity of evolution
- Article
- 01 Feb 2024
An interview with Tabitha Scott, who has over 20 years of experience leading corporate innovation and sustainability initiatives. She shares her insights on business evolution and innovation, including the best way to run innovation programs to gather ideas from employees.
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Embracing neurodiversity in accounting and finance
- Article
- 01 Jan 2024
- Anthony Pacilio
Neurodivergent employees can foster a culture of innovation,
problem solving, and different perspectives. Anthony Pacilio gives advice on how employers in accounting and finance can attract and retain neurodivergent employees.
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Drive your innovation with improved decision-making
- Article
- 01 Dec 2023
- Linda A.Hill, Taran Swan, Emily Tedards
Despite their embrace of agile methods, many firms striving to innovate are struggling to produce breakthrough ideas. A key culprit, according to the authors, is an outdated, inefficient approach to decision-making. To align their decision-making processes with agile approaches, businesses need to include diverse points of view, clarify decision rights and encourage constructive conflict in the pursuit of a better experience for the end customer. The article suggests best practices for these interventions, drawing on the story of the transformation at Pfizer’s Global Clinical Supply, which pl...
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When innovation and trust are at odds
- Article
- 01 Dec 2023
- Robert Hurley
Speeding an innovative new product to market can have serious consequences, says Robert Hurley. Consider the Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play, which has lost consumer trust for the company after being linked to 32 infant deaths. According to the article, a risky type of manic innovation happens when a company fails to create a balance between growth and risk management, with staff concerned about safety and long-term reputation marginalized.
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Use your network to achieve innovation
- Article
- 01 Nov 2023
- Bill McEvily, Anne ter Wal
Why do so many big companies get poor returns on all the money they invest in innovation? A large body of research suggests that it’s because their managers tend to think novel ideas are “deviant” and resist them. As a result such ideas get watered down to make them less threatening - or get squashed altogether. The solution, the authors’ studies show, is to inspire, support, and protect innovation by tapping into your networks. They explain three practices which are especially useful.
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Unexpected interruptions bring unexpected creativity boost
- Article
- 01 Nov 2023
- Eben Harrell
Long work interruptions are usually seen as detrimental, causing losses in productivity as operations grind to a halt. But when a fire at a supplier’s factory forced a temporary shutdown at the plant of a large European manufacturer of consumer goods, researchers Tim Schweisfurth and Anne Greul found a surprising upside: the idleness led to an outpouring of ideas for improvements. Their findings suggest that unanticipated interruptions can actually enhance innovation and creativity.
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Innovative processes in finance and accounting
- Article
- 01 Oct 2023
- Vineet Jain
Adopting innovative technologies can lead to streamlined processes, real-time insights, and increased focus on strategic planning, says Vineet Jain CA. The article looks at innovation in the record-to-report (R2R), accounts payable and procure-to-pay processes and the potential for automated tools to assist with these tasks. Finally, important challenges associated with AI and other innovative technologies and skill sets which forward-thinking finance and accounting professionals should develop are covered.
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How to Steer Clear of Groupthink
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- 01 Oct 2023
- Jennifer Mueller, Sarah Harvey, Alec Levenson
This brief article outlines three methods for avoiding groupthink and encouraging innovation and creativity in teams.
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Innovation baskets: A new path to strategic innovation
- Article
- 01 Sep 2023
- Christoph Loch, Stelios Kavadias, Haijian Si
Companies typically treat their innovation projects as a portfolio, aiming for a mix of projects that collectively meet their strategic objectives. The problem, say the authors, is that portfolio objectives have become standardized, and innovation projects are often only weakly related to a company’s distinctive strategy. Here they introduce a new tool to help leaders better align their innovation investments. Their strategic innovation tool kit has two elements: a strategy summary framework and an innovation basket.
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'SAFE' to invest in Israel: no tax on conversion 'benefit' for foreign investors - part one
- Article
- 03 Jul 2023
- Henriette Fuchs
In the first of a two-part article, Henriette Fuchs of Yaron-Eldar, Paller, Schwartz & Co in Tel Aviv reports on Israel tax authorities' acceptance of the SAFE for investment in innovative and tech companies.
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How generative AI can expand human innovation and creativity
- Article
- 01 Jul 2023
- Tojin T.Eapen, Daniel J.Finkenstadt, Josh Folk, Lokesh Venkataswamy
Five ways in which generative artificial intelligence (AI) can assist organisations by amplifying the creativity of employees to help them generate and identify innovative ideas - and build on the quality of raw ideas. The article is illustrated with images of potential product ideas created using prompts in Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, two popular AI text-to-image tools.
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Human creativity can be augmented by generative AI
- Article
- 01 Jul 2023
- Tojin Eapen, Daniel J Finkenstadt etc
There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation. In the past two decades, companies have used crowdsourcing and idea competitions to involve outsiders in the innovation process. But many businesses have struggled to capitalize on these contributions. They’ve lacked an efficient way to evaluate the ideas, for instance, or to sy...
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The right tool for the right job
- Article
- 01 Jul 2023
- Costas Markides, Anita McGahan
A review of the available innovation tools to develop ideas, nurture inspiration and creativity, and set innovation in motion. Tools covered include familiar concepts such as brainstorming and the Kano model, as well as lesser-mentioned tools, such as VUCA, innovation portfolio and transient advantage.
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Winning the innovation game in emerging markets
- Article
- 07 Jun 2023
- Manuel Hensmans
This paper aims to provide advanced market managers in Europe, the USA or Japan with a long-term framework to prepare for and seize emerging market innovation opportunities. It is based on eight years of studying emerging market innovation opportunities, how to prepare for them and how to seize them.
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China enhances tax relief for innovation and small businesses
- Article
- 08 May 2023
- Lewis Lu
Lewis Lu of KPMG China discusses enhanced tax measures to support innovation and small businesses.
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Innovation without disruption
- Article
- 01 May 2023
- Chan W.Kim, Renée Mauborgne
Disruption is a fashionable phrase in business. But companies don't have to disrupt to innovate, the authors argue. They suggest ways to create new markets for growth without destroying existing companies or jobs.
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Startups stung by UK delay in awarding tax credits to innovators
- Article
- 13 Apr 2023
- Aisha S Gani
Some UK startup businesses have been waiting upwards of six months to receive research and development tax credits from HMRC, forcing some to take out loans to plug the gap in funds. The Fintech trade body Innovate Finance said it has member firms worried about lengthy delays that make it difficult to predict their cash flows. HMRC has acknowledged that it had extended processing times.
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Nurturing the UK's innovation ecosystem
- Article
- 07 Feb 2023
- Sebastian Klovig Skelton
Andrew Roughan, CEO of technology innovation hub Plexal, discusses how tech startups collaborate with the UK government to transform public services, the barriers to entry, and how the process can be improved.
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Design thinking for innovation
- Article
- 01 Feb 2023
- Kristine Brands
How management accountants can apply the 'design thinking' approach to innovation to achieve a competitive edge. According to IDEO's Tim Brown, this human-centred approach can be used to integrate people's needs, technology, and business success factors to achieve innovation. The article applies design thinking to the example of a company needing to integrate its basic cost accounting system with its general ledger and other departmental functions.
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Innovation-driven culture
- Article
- 01 Jan 2023
- Mark L.Frigo, Terry E.Groff, Hans Laessoe, Darren Snellgrove
Developing a culture that prioritizes innovation is the key to creating long-term sustainable value, say the authors. They use three companies as case studies - Reading Bakery Systems, Johnson & Johnson, and the LEGO Group. Former leaders from the companies share insights on developing an innovation-driven culture.
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The ideas that inspire us
- Article
- 01 Nov 2022
- Roz Brewer, Stephane Bancel, Anish Shah
Harvard Business Review asked eight current and former CEOs from some of the world’s top companies to describe the innovative ideas that have propelled their own careers and organizations. Two themes emerge: first, the need for constant innovation and out-of-the-box thinking as markets become more dynamic; second, the importance of purpose and a vision that encompasses all stakeholders.
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The next generation of industry changers
- Article
- 01 Sep 2022
- Nate Hopper, Britta Lokting, Kim Kavin
Interviews with fifteen innovative company founders in sectors including real estate, financial software solutions and data labelling.
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Tax directors expect high tech costs in new UAE regime
- Article
- 01 Jun 2022
- Danish Mehoob
tax professionals say the incoming corporate tax regime – the UAE's first ever – will use cutting-edge tax technology add-ons but they may be expensive
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Three tricks to make hard decisions easier
- Article
- 01 Mar 2022
- Marc Randolph
Entrepreneurs often face what feel like impossible or unknowable choices. Marc Randolph shares three decision-making tricks he relied upon as cofounder and CEO of Netflix - and that he still uses today for business strategy decisions. These include the 'one-way or two-way door decisions' identified by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
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Cognitive diversity - innovation's 'secret sauce'
- Article
- 01 Mar 2022
- Terri Simpkin
Terri Simpkin, Associate Professor and MBA director at the University of Tasmania, shares the importance of creating a culture that encourages teams to bring their authentic selves and divergent ideas to work. She argues that innovation is fundamentally reliant on diversity - and in particular, diversity of thinking. She provides tips on recruiting for diversity of thinking ('cognitive diversity') and keeping those people in the business.
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Liminal movement by digital platform-based sharing economy ventures: The case of Uber Technologies
- Article
- 01 Mar 2022
- Raghu Garud, Arun Kumaraswamy, Anna Roberts, Le Xu
The authors explore the challenges that digital platform-based sharing economy ventures face in establishing legitimacy for their business models by examining the dynamics that ensued when Uber Technologies deployed its ridesharing business model in four U.S. cities. They find that platform-based sharing economy ventures such as Uber do best by rapidly forging ahead with their market strategies in each local context before regulators can intervene decisively and compromise their viability.
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The mysterious world of airline pricing: innovative practices and strategies for profit
- Article
- 04 Feb 2022
- Mohammad Reza Habibi, Chiranjeev S. Kohli
Business success and pricing are very closely intertwined. Using the airline industry as an example, this study aims to explain how businesses can improve their profitability through creative pricing strategies. The study takes an in-depth look at how airline companies developed innovative strategies to create differentiation between competitors.
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Creating new markets: Six innovative strategies
- Article
- 01 Dec 2021
- Efosa Ojomo, Lincoln Wilcox
'Non-consumption' exists for a myriad of products and services worldwide, signalling widespread opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and businesses. The authors have studied the innovation practices of 100 successful organizations which created sustainable new markets for previously ignored consumer groups.
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