Business

Continental International Survey on Innovation Culture

German Companies are Losing Ground

August 30th, 2018
Jannatul Ferdous, News from Berlin
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The German Company “Continental” revealed its survey of Innovation Culture in Germany, the US, Japan and China. It is identified that, USA and China are still the kings of the innovation where most of the German companies are lagging behind about the matter of innovation.

Dr. Ariane Reinhart, Executive Board Member for Human Relations stated that: “Companies need to create a culture in which employees are willing to not only embrace change but also actively promote it.”

ontinental promotes innovation through responsive, team-oriented leadership, diversity, flexible working models and its own startup program. But compared to the other countries, Germans assume that they are actively involved only up to 30%. On the other hand, other countries possess different innovation cultures, such as 21% in Japan, 45% USA and 54% China.

Reinhart is concerned about the findings of the survey on innovation culture in German companies: “The results are worrying. Without a strong innovation culture, German companies are at risk of losing ground against international companies. Digital transformation further increases the pressure to act. Thanks to the company-wide measures we have implemented here at Continental, we have over many years successfully demonstrated how, as a major international company with more than 243,000 employees, we can promote innovation in our own company, remain agile and actively involve our employees in the change.”

Germany, the USA and Japan are still trying to become more involved in low interest rate in technology in Germany-like collaboration tools, business apps and artificial intelligence etc but China captured a major 63% share, the USA 30%, Japan 28% and Germany 32%.

Regarding innovation, the German point of view has completely changed. They think innovation is a joint workforce and management. About this issue, “Every employee should be responsible and promoted for innovation”. This concept is believed by US 41%, Japan 17%, China 25% and 38% of Germans. But there is also a contradictory statement too, where it is said that, “Management personnel and company management are responsible for innovation.” About this statement Chinese and Japanese workers have voted respectively 40% and 36%, and 32% of Germans also considered the statement to be true, whereas only 18% people of USA believe that, it is true.

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News from Berlin