Kenyan executives are willing to work with innovators to promote effeciency on their firms and in the general business sector as well as in the government according to results of the 2014 “Global Innovation Barometer,” unveiled by General Electric in Nairobi.The findings indicate that Kenyan executives at 77% are in line with global average in saying that collaboration is a risk worth taking to successfully innovate nowadays. They expressed their willingness to explore increased collaboration activities, open sourcing with entrepreneurs to innovate and crowdsourcing for ideas and content.
Kenyan executives at 38% view smaller businesses such as SMEs and start-ups as driving innovation in Kenya, showing that they have an overwhelmingly positive perception of the role innovation plays in society. More than three-quarters of respondents agreed that people in the country live better than 10 years ago because of the impact of innovation.
In his opening remarks, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Matiang’i reiterated the government’s commitment to supporting innovation saying, “We are open to collaboration with partners across sectors to help us address bottlenecks and challenges to innovation.”
Regarding the perception of the efficiency of government support for innovation only 36% of executives agree that government support for innovation is efficiently organised – this is in line with the global average of 40%. Like executives globally, 88% of local executives would want to see government align students’ curricula with business needs; 87% would like to facilitate research cooperation with other countries; 88% would like to see a better protection of business confidentiality and trade secrets; and 83% would like to see fight bureaucracy and red tape for companies willing to access funds and incentives allocated to innovation.
Now in its fourth edition and spanning 26 countries, the GE Global Innovation Barometer is an international opinion survey of senior business executives actively engaged in the management of their firm’s innovation strategy.
Over 3,000 Kenyan executives participated for the first time in the GE Global Innovation Barometer Survey conducted in April and May 2014.