Much has been written recently on the subject of what to do about innovation in lean times. Many writers and bloggers all have a general idea of what to do, and many are advocating similar strategies such as cutting costs, focusing effort on quick-buck productivity and aggressively cutting out low-potential innovations.

Innovation and all other budgets, which are perceived to be less important to the survival instinct of companies in distress, are being cut. Champagne tastes that crept in during times of plenty, are being eliminated.

Marketing, sponsorship, bonuses, increases, R&D and other cost elements, all find themselves in the firing line or at least in front of a very sharp set of pairing shears. It all leads to insular, short-term decision making, which can have disastrous consequences in years to come.

And so the tales of woe could continue and leave you with an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom convincing you that the only way out of this mess is to just try and survive until something positive happens one day and you can venture out into the sunlight and look around in wonder as you do a corporate damage assessment.

Not so says innovator Jeff Cornwall, “You have two options: hole up in a bunker and hope it ends before you run out of tinned peas, or innovate and emerge stronger than when the economy took a hiding.”

There are many examples of companies that were launched precisely in recessionary times, such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, Revlon and others. Innovation under the leadership and vision of these people was relentless. It may be the time for you and your superiors to ask the question: “What kind of leader are you?”

In global terms, South Africa has been fairly lucky, as we have come through recent months relatively unscathed. However, we have some doubts about the effectiveness of the enormous $1 trillion bailout package and the permanence of the current recovery that we observe in global markets. We believe that the problem runs much deeper and this may be the beginning of a long lasting change in the dynamics of world commerce.

But if the rules of the game change, we can either sit and wait in hope or we can be nimble and adapt our game plan to pave the way for success under a new set of rules. What will differentiate the new winners from the new losers will be that the new winners focused on innovation and efficiency during the downturn.

One thing is for certain. There is not going to be a billboard on all major highways announcing triumphantly that the recession is now over and we can all go back to business as usual. So how will you know when the recession is over?

Innovation in these times has become more, rather than less, important. So how do we advocate that you tackle the obvious tension between cost and time pressures on one hand and the unsubstantiated promises of innovation success on the other?

Approaching innovation as a business

There are many approaches and many obvious things to deal with first, as evidenced by the plethora of blogs on the subject. But we believe above all of these, you need to approach your innovation effort like a business:

• Make a deal with executives to fund you for a finite amount of time and allow you to use tangible short-term successes to pay for yourself first.

• Convince them that you can make innovation in your business work on economic terms.

• Then ask them to leave some of the innovation profits on the table to fund your effort further and possibly fund further innovation investments.

• Treat innovation like a business – the more profitable you make it, the more funding it will attract, which will enable a longer term focus and a larger team.

• Go with results not promises. Innovation is about Cash Payback and Collateral Benefits versus Good Intentions and Insufficient Action!

If all else fails, and you cannot get budget due to a toxic cocktail of corporate politics, knee-jerk financial discipline and lack of corporate foresight, then you have to do your utmost to keep one thing alive…

And that is the imperative to maintain the sanctity and culture of your team and your innovation effort. If, one day, the powers-that-be decide to take their collective feet off the brakes, it will take you between 18 months and two years just to rebuild your innovation capability.  If you allow it to lapse now, you will struggle to catch up with the companies that did not capitulate.

Iain Bryant is a founder and CE of the boutique innovation firm, Future by Design Innovation Management. He headed up the innovation program for Harmony Gold until Oct 2007, and was one of the co-founders of the SA Innovation Summit. He is a guest lecturer for GIBS on Innovation Management and Strategy and can be contacted via www.futurebydesign.co.za .