Energy Crisis and Innovation

These days a lot of companies we work for are struggling with trends. Who is driving innovation in a company – the demand of customers, or the engineers that find new solutions, or the suppliers with a new model? Many engineers in R&D need to wait till a customer requires new innovations and is willing to pay for it, so in car engineering for new motors and different energy resources. Some of the heavy machines are already set on hold, but is there already any new technology at hand? Will Ethanol do it?

This article sets a light on Europe and Sweden: The Sweden story is a valuable model of what historians call “basic innovation”: fundamental changes in technology and organization that create new industries, transform existing ones, and, over time, reshape societies. Basic innovations — including electrification, the automobile, commercial air travel, digital computing, and, most recently, the Internet — involve not just a single new technology but a collection of new inventions, practices, distribution networks, businesses and business models, and shifts in personal and organizational thinking that combine to transform the way business is conducted, technology is deployed, and people are engaged.

Of all industrial countries, Sweden is probably the farthest along in weaning itself from fossil fuels. Today, the country depends on oil for only 30 percent of its energy, down from 77 percent in 1970. (The United States, by contrast, depends on fossil fuels for 85 percent of its energy.) Fifteen percent of all cars sold in Sweden in 2007 can run on ethanol, up from 2 percent in 2000. That’s why basic innovation is so important: Humans must rapidly rethink and rebuild their infrastructure, technology, organizations, and approach to working with nature.

Part of the Article: „The Next Industrial Imperative“ by Peter Senge, Bryan Smith, and Nina Kruschwitz in the Magazine strategy+business, free article on the internet, https://www.strategy-business.com/press/freearticle/08205

You like to share more about innovation – come to the International EWMD Conference in Lisbon – experts from various fields will discuss about the innovational culture in Europe. www.ewmd.org Nov. 7-9