Helping Get Unstuck & Strike a Value Chord

A platform to share and reflect on my journey across the worlds of management, innovation, and social impact. Here, you'll find a collection of my management thoughts, highlights from my books, research contributions, and presentations, all rooted in years of academic and practical experience. Whether you're a student, practitioner, policymaker, or fellow thinker, this space is designed to provoke thought, encourage dialogue, and contribute meaningfully to both academic and applied conversations in business and beyond.

Sustainability & Innovation

  1. In 2003, America’s power generation industry spent less on R&D as a proportion of turnover than the country’s pet food industry. With a changed perspective on environmental issues in the last few years this proportion is going to change.
  2. Currently Europe puts a price on carbon, through its Emissions-Trading System. The chances of such initiatives in U.S. are increasing with every passing day. For corporations, technology will play an important role in managing this economic effect if and when it comes into play.
  3. There are some interesting inter-industry dynamics that are expected from forays into renewable technologies. Technological change may allow some part of the energy and transport business to invade each other’s turf. The power utilities hope to gain from the enthusiasm for plug-in electric cars, which could spell trouble for oil companies. Biofuels are also a major threat to oil companies since every farmer and forester may build a cellulosic ethanol plant in his backyard.
  4. Companies such as DuPont might be better poised to make the fuel in the future. The
         technological competence needed by these companies to undertake development of alternative fuels sources presents an opportunity.
  5. Wind and solar power present high growth renewable energy sources. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, America could supply its entire energy needs by covering a mere 1.6% of its land area with solar
         cells. Wind and solar energy already play an important part in few
         countries. Around 20% of Denmark’s electricity comes from wind and about 80% of China’s hot water from solar energy. In recent times, solar photovoltaic power has grown by an average of 41% a year over the past three years; wind has grown by 18% a year. There is tremendous scope for the solar energy source to grow in U.S. Technology will play an important role in its growth. In the case of solar photovoltaic cells the efficiency with which they convert sunlight to electricity
         has increased from 6% when they were first developed to 15% now. Their cost has dropped from around $20 per watt of production capacity in the 1970s to $2.70 in 2004. The silicon storage has pushed the price somewhat since 2004. Innovation can play a role in improving the efficiency and reducing the cost.
  6. During the wind boom of the 1970s turbine blades were around 5-10 meters long, and turbines produced no more than 200-300 kw of energy each. The energy they produced cost around $2 per kwh. Now the blades are up to 40 meters long and turbines produce up to 2.5 MW each at a cost of 5.8 cents per kwh depending on the location (Note: Coal fired electricity, depending on the
         plant, costs 2-4 cents per kwh). There is an opportunity for innovation to make wind energy highly competitive as against coal fired electricity. Already, there are 5 MW prototypes in existence, with 62 meter blades. GE’s head of renewable energy research recons that wind power is heading
         towards 3-4 kwh. To achieve this, the length of the turbine blades needs to be increased to 90 meters. Currently, the constraint is in terms of the weight of the central cell, positioned between the blades. At the moment, it weighs 300 tons. Research to make the central cell lighter is in
         progress and presents an opportunity. Incidentally, the size of GE’s wind energy business is approaching its gas and steam turbine business. So far GE was using wind turbines made from different technologies interweaved together, such as propulsion equipment developed for ships and standard
         variable-speed drives used in pumps and conveyor belts. Today, with the
         growth in this business GE has plans to design equipments specifically for wind. Innovation is expected to play a major role.
  7. There has been an accelerated investment in thin film technologies to counter the shortage in silicon. Silicon Valley has taken some major initiatives towards these technologies.
  8. Technological advances in sustainable transport also present an opportunity. At this year’s Detroit motor show GM unveiled the Chevrolet Volt, which has both a battery and a combustion engine. The commercial scale production has yet to commence but the technology received good reviews. Some disruptive technologies are also gaining prominence. For example, Elon Musk (the entrepreneur behind PayPal) unveiled an electric sports car – Tesla – that plugs into the wall
         and stores energy in lithium-ion battery. Cost is still a concern and technological advances will play a role in commercial success of these ideas.

Source: The Economist, October 13th 2007.