An increasing number of IT vendors are hanging their hats on the 'innovation' peg, some carrying out research suggesting that companies do not believe that they can survive unless they are 'innovative'.

However, scratching beyond the surface tends to show how thin the veneer can be; there are too many definitions of innovation and this is often just within the vendors themselves.

Do we have to innovate to survive? What are the options? What risks are associated with innovating?

Innovation seems to be too inclusive, and it seems difficult to weed out companies that aren't doing some bit of innovation, and to point to the truly innovative which are beacons in a world of mediocrity.

I think what we need to do is to start from a different viewpoint, looking at creating a different approach which can mirror an organisation's own risk profile.

In the past, Quocirca has provided a viewpoint of business processes, helping organisations to differentiate between the different types of process they utilise. These types are:

Commodity processes - those that everyone has to do, such as payroll, vacation booking, purchasing, the Data Protection Act and so on. Here if a process is done badly it counts against you, but doing it well is only being as good as the majority.

Differentiated processes - those that the majority of organisations in your market or of your size need to follow, such as certain legal/regulatory requirements, or claims handling in the insurance market, or package tracking in logistics.

Unique processes - those that make your organisation different to any other company, and are closely guarded as being beyond industry best practice. These may be approaches to chemical modelling in the pharmaceutical markets, or the running of financial models in the investment banking arena.