Motokazu Udagawa
Fostering innovation within the organization

We invited Motokazu Udagawa, Associate Professor at Saitama School of Economics & Management, to give a lecture to company directors about “A collective-effort scheme for breeding innovation within the organization.”
Professor Udagawa touched upon the issues that large companies in Japan face today and stated, “To foster innovation internally, it’s imperative not only to have ideas, but also to analyze from the perspective of internal processes in the organization.”

“When you consider why a technology exists, there is always a process that produced it and the activities of a positive deviator. If you take inventory of the process and not just the technology itself, it should become possible to drive stable innovation.” The executives in attendance showed appreciation of this approach.

“When you speak of innovation, many people link it directly to new business. And new business is a theme that is inevitably brought up at the conclusion of management and core human resource training. But we actually possess strengths, and how we use them is important. Taking notice of that process is sure to spawn many good leads. It is our employees who shoulder how we can evolve packaging, and management must align with them to ensure that they are motivated in their work.”