ISSUE 2/2000

ITC frequently receives this question from firms and trade development institutions around the world.

When ITC began researching this topic in late 1997, no information was available on services innovation in developing countries and economies in transition. ITC decided to request examples of services innovations from its partner organizations in these countries. Responses came from 26 countries, citing a total of 85 innovations. The range of countries demonstrates that much innovation is already occurring in all developmental contexts. Here are the results:

Trade is growing in visibility and importance in the development agenda in international forums, donor capitals and, most importantly, in developing and transition economies themselves. WTO trade ministers in Seattle and UNCTAD member countries in Bangkok made it clear that our partner countries need much more technical assistance to integrate into the multilateral trading system. Trade-related capacity building needs to be more broadly available for governments, enterprises and business support institutions.

The lack of staff skills is the single biggest impediment to innovation success. Services and service delivery processes do not lend themselves to development by a separate unit. All staff need to be actively involved and to have an innovation mindset.One of the most common management errors is to underestimate the skills training needed so that staff can participate constructively in innovation. Investment in training will benefit the firm in the long run by eventually reducing the time needed to identify new opportunities and increasing the degree of certainty in the solution selected. There are five areas in which training is critical: stimulating creativity, assessing innovation options, focusing on the customer, designing new services and implementing change.