New research from Accenture, covered in this article on CIO Insight (by Eric Chabrow, "US Tech Leadership Seen Slipping"), leads Accenture’s Chief Technology Strategist Bob Suh to the conclusion that the US is falling behind as a leader in technology innovation.  I believe this conclusion is wrong and misleading. 

The CIO Insight article states:

Suh reached that conclusion after reviewing results of a survey of more than 500 global CIOs that the business advisory firm conducted late last year. Only 6 percent of American CIOs surveyed responded that they wanted to be leaders in adopting new technologies vs. 15 percent among European and 19 percent among Chinese IT leaders. But 54 percent of American CIOs said they would rather be followers in adopting technology, compared with 44 percent in Europe and 27 percent in China.

These numbers could suggest a lag in innovation, if you choose to read them that way—and Accenture can certainly drive its consulting business by encouraging CIOs to “innovate” (i.e., implement new enterprise systems). But innovating just to innovate is misguided and costly. There are several ways to interpret Accenture’s findings—and none of them equate to any loss of overall leadership or lack of productivity by US IT leaders.

• First of all, “the basics” are the basics for a reason—they work. Project Workforce Management is a perfect example. There is no rocket science here, and what we do may rarely be seen as “innovative technology.” But I see companies over and over again who fail to implement fundamental systems and best practices, especially in Europe and China. If improving Project Workforce Management can increase a company’s top and bottom lines, then it is a good investment, even if it means that the companies who implement it are called "followers." I suspect that “54 percent of American CIOs would rather be followers in adopting technology” because they are charged with helping their business units get “the basics” right.
• Innovation doesn’t always equate to leadership—it can also indicate a need to catch up. One commenter to the CIO Insight article, Ben Breeland, states it well: “Just because some a developing country, with no existing infrastructure chooses to deploy fiber optic; it certainly does not mean that existing (operating) companies should scrap copper and replace it with fiber.” In other words, China’s drive to innovate has more to do with keeping pace than with leading.
• In one of CIO Magazine’s blogs, Laurie M. Orlov states: “ The driver seat in technology is increasingly going to be in the business units, not in IT. Which means that technologies will be discovered and eventually thrown over to IT to support, with CIOs becoming involved at the implementation stage.” This is simply good business sense. Companies innovate when they truly need a new solution to solve a business problem, and that innovation may not necessarily be driven by IT.
• I also have to wonder: how does SaaS (Software as a Service) fit into Suh’s conclusions? For example, a company that subscribes to an online project management or CRM system has effectively “outsourced” innovation to the provider of the SaaS, and relies on that vendor to provide innovative upgrades to its technology. If I subscribe to a leading SaaS provider’s product, am I a leader or a follower in Suh’s survey?

In a future post, I will bring this topic more close to home with my own observations about innovation for its own sake, especially as it relates to implementing enterprise solutions such as Project Workforce Management.