Chinese firms becoming more innovative, creative

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04:38

China has a number of companies that are becoming more innovative in the face of a changing world, said IDEO CEO Tim Brown.

Innovation happens over long cycles, Brown said. More Chinese companies have reached out to global brands and learned how to innovate.

Companies need to become more comfortable with the unknown and become more customer-centered in order to compete in the changing economic climate, Brown said.

IDEO has teamed up with Tsinghua PBC School of Finance and Tsinghua Academy of Arts & Design to develop a creative program called "Lead a Creative China 2030," aimed at nurturing executives who aspire to transform China's economy. The program has enhanced the innovative capabilities and competitiveness of Chinese companies while helping them enter the international stage.

The program was nominated for the 2019 World Changing Ideas award by business media brand Fast Company. Brown said the program is teaching CEOs and senior executives of companies how to incorporate design and innovation strategically in their organizations.

“We focus a lot of energy, a lot of time, a lot of effort over the last several decades on how to make our companies more operationally competitive," Brown said. "We now need to balance that with ways of making our companies more creatively competitive, more resilient, more adaptive because the world has never changed as fast as its changing today."