The best thing a city administration can do to innovate at a faster rate is to reduce the threshold criteria for service procurement, and dilute the gatekeeping arrangements

The best thing a city administration can do to innovate at a faster rate is to reduce the threshold criteria for service procurement, making it more inclusionary, and dilute the gatekeeping arrangements to make way for fresh ideas.

From a service provider's perspective, innovation is less of a function of organizational critical mass, period of market existence, and proof of concept, and more about organizational agility, ideation, and their ability to experiment.

Especially in the urban innovation space, where certain approaches are being tried for the first time, certain concepts are being tested based on inconclusive literary evidence, and certain technologies are being embraced while still nascent and years behind their known lifecycle performance.

The public procurement framework, in its current shape, is structured enough to attract good service providers while ensuring transparency and accountability; but exclusionary enough to miss out on some of the best ones out there.

City administrations must move away from self-limiting prophecies of many kinds, whether procedural, statutory, or simply comfort of familiarity. What is also required is to develop a risk appetite, to embrace the innovation.

To start embracing innovation as a habit, city administrations-

✅Should develop a small-scale virtual or hybrid sandbox environment, to invite and allow all kinds of concepts, ideas, and approaches, with a range and hierarchy of actors. A place where failing is permissible.

✅Should develop an unparalleled, multipronged feedback and idea gateway.

✅Should use their discretionary power to test the minimum viable idea, sometimes out-of-turn, and with or without a mandate.

✅Continuous and frequent learning from test outcomes should directly feed into urban and sectoral policies via a special and fast route.

✅Should use their discretionary power to allocate a nominal fund and resources to realize the above. It’s also possible that some of the following may emerge from the above activities, like new and innovative sources of revenue, new forms of public-private partnership, and new business models.

Deviating from the norm and taking risks are not familiar themes in conventional urban governance, but those cities that develop a risk-taking aptitude will lead the way in urban innovation. There are known examples of cities, regions, and countries that have taken risks to test innovative concepts, and approaches for the first time, with acclaimed success, more should join the league or develop their own pathways. Resources, skills, and community support shall follow.

Author: Anoop Jha
Founder, Urban Tenets
Website: https://urbantenets.nl/

The case of missing middle segment of market, facilitators, and platforms in a resource-scarce world

We have seen a spectrum of mature and emerging markets for products ranging from limited edition to premium, budget, second-hand, vintage, to the end of first/second/third life, but the spectrum is not complete yet.

Take the case of automobiles. A car can be a limited edition, budget-friendly, and can find its way to the second-hand and vintage market. Its components can also find utility in their second and third lives. But how much percentage of the original price will you get if you buy a car from a showroom and try to sell it the same day? In terms of material, functionality, aesthetics, etc., the car remains, say, 99% the same as when it was sold via a showroom, but its perceived value depreciates manifold in a matter of a few hours, days, and a month after its showroom sale (5 to 30%).

To make this idea appear more legitimate, there are evaluators, insurance agencies, business literature, and marketing gurus who will make you believe that the car’s tangible value has depreciated significantly and that it must find its way to the second-hand market. A day-old car and a 5 year-old car both belong to the second-hand market and remain at the mercy of speculators. The car is just one example, but there is a missing formal market for products that are virtually and technically as good as new. Consequently, products experience a sudden drop in perceived value as soon as they change hands, prompting borderline consumers to opt for a new one instead, hence adding more burden to resources and the environment.

The case of supermarkets and fulfillment centers is no different. Consumers, in search of value for money, righteously want products exactly as displayed and promised in advertisements. The result? A minor dent on packaging or product, and the product goes to the waste bin. We are talking about millions of such products going to waste bins daily. FMCG and F&B products of varying value, shelf life, and embodied energy, whether edible or otherwise, face cosmetic rejection and end up in waste bins and landfills because there is a missing formal market, mechanism, and buyers for such products.

The solution is not very difficult. The first point of sale, i.e., brands, delivery agencies, supermarkets, fulfillment centers, etc. should come to an arrangement with potential and latent consumers based on self-disclosure about the extent of cosmetic damage, backed by legitimate valuation in depreciation, to sell such products through a dedicated section of their existing sales channels, websites, apps, and stores. This will only enhance the sustainability quotient and brand value of businesses, allow consumers to get a fair deal and make sustainable decisions, and result in lesser wastage, a lower environmental footprint, and reduced resource consumption.

Author: Anoop Jha
Founder, Urban Tenets
hashtag#Netherlands
https://urbantenets.nl/

Why having an agile urban policy and responsive vision plan today, is an unavoidable necessity?

Seemingly far-fetched approach to be acknowledged and adopted by many city administrations across hierarchy and geography, which are accustomed to a classical, structured, and long lifecycle approach of planning, urban management and development, and economic growth.

To set a pretext, a hashtag#Vision2030 document published 5 to 10 years ago (in any domain) and to continue with that in toto, without factoring in hashtag#AI, which is a midway disruptive phenomenon, that too without a total grasp of its actual potential and impact; doesn’t make sense. Likewise, a Resilience Plan 2030 prepared in a pre-pandemic time or without accounting for a range of geopolitical shifts witnessed in recent and ongoing years, and continuing with the script in its original form doesn't make sense either. Similarly, half a decade or a decade-long rare drug discovery or targeted medicine development pathway approved in 2020, may witness a radical reduction in time due to the advent of AI, reducing years of trial, testing, and customization time to hours and minutes, hence requiring original pathways to be revisited.

Conventionally there is too much resistance and bureaucratic and legal hurdles present there by design, to make it nearly impossible to change or overhaul long-range vision documents, and action plans once published.

AI is just an example, too potent to ignore though; the cyclical period of disruptive innovations and socio-technological changes seem to be reducing and sometimes unpredictable, and such periods are bound to reduce if compared historically, due to unprecedented, exponential, and unfathomable technological advancement. The conventional approach of 10, 20, and 30-year-long, fairly rigid structures of plans and visions has to change. It has to be agile by design, it has to have inbuilt provisions for tweak, restructuring, and even overhaul, if required and this has to be done without fear of public criticism, and to be backed by science.

Every kind of projection based on which a long-range vision document and action plans are usually prepared must also be revisited periodically by embedded provisions, to reconsider and accommodate the known and perceptible impacts and opportunities that surface due to disruptive forces, often technological.

It was a norm 50 years ago, and was ok 5 years ago to prepare an urban development plan, economic plan, vision plan, etc for a 20 to 30-year horizon period, and it was customary to treat that document as sacrosanct enough so that no one interferes with it, but that approach today must be revisited. Sooner it is acknowledged better cities will cope and perform in these changing times.

Author: Urban Tenets
Founder, Urban Tenets,
Netherlands
https://urbantenets.nl/