Henry Jacob

Bringing Innovation 101: Change your focal point

Most Transformations start at changing perception.  All you need to change perception is changing the focal point.

Take the example of business in general, what makes a business successful? Is it money, profit, revenue, or market share? Unfortunately some of the successful entrepreneurs have different opinion.

In a recent interview, when Business Week Senior Writer Steve Hamm asked Narayana Murthy, “did you ever imagine that Infosys would become such an important company in the worldwide tech industry?” this is exactly what he replied

"We were certain of one thing, and that is our value system. In fact, when we sat down in the bedroom of my apartment in 1981, we discussed for four hours what our objective should be. Should it be revenues, profits, market capitalization?

No, we said it should be none of those. We will seek respect from every one of the stakeholders. My view was if we sought respect we'd automatically do the right thing by each of them. We'd satisfy our customers, be fair to our employees, and follow the finest principles with respect to investors, we would not violate laws, and, finally, we'd make a difference to society.

And then, I said, automatically you'll get revenues and profits and all that"

The process, culture, system, which they have built over the years, is the result of focusing on their vision and values.

In a same way, bringing innovation needs a change in where we focus.

The model we follow in software development, especially in the offshore model, is build around what we call ‘Delivery’, it works as long as you are just a ‘Coding Shop‘, not tuned for running an innovative organization. Trying to trying to use this model for innovation is almost like focusing on 'Money' to build an Insofys.

The only way to bring innovation is, changing our focus from

1. Delivery to Wow
2. Software to Solution
3. Manger to Leader
4. Contract Negotiation to Collaboration
5. Customer Satisfaction to Customer Success

Future of IT

Indian IT service industry is on the move, some of the top players recruit around 5000 employees each quarter, salaries are raising as never before. One of the constant questions in many IT professionals mind is how long is this growth going to be?

Many gurus optimistic about this growth because still there is a huge market yet to be captured, more than that this is defiantly not a boom, something really driven by the real business requirement. 

My optimism has a different reason. I see a great future for IT industry, because what we have produced so far is nothing but a crap (of course there are always exceptions), especially the enterprise applications.

There is a need to rewrite everything we have written so far.

What Alan Kay, the man behind the OOP (Object Oriented Programming), said 10 years before, is still valid.

“The Computer Revolution hasn't happened yet.”

This growth can be multiplied by providing better solutions. All you need is a change in the way we think.

An interesting interview with Alan Kay: Is Computer Science an Oxymoron?

Bringing Innovation 101: Innovation is Transformation

‘If life is journey, then business is hiking’ - Henry Jacob (of course me)

Business is a constant process transformation, we always taken that extra mile in order to differentiate ourselves in the crowded market place.

Whether we like it or not, these transformations are inevitable. Not just to differentiate, even to serve our customers better, and to improve the way we work. Quality Initiatives, CMM, Offshore, Outsource are just few of them.

Since it is inevitable; we simply follow. Today every Indian IT company is CMM certified, all consulting companies have their Indian presence (IBM, Accenture, Gap Gemini, etc).

Since everyone follows, there is no other option than moving ahead.

Moving ahead is not simple. Sometime, we need to break rules, unlearn, and even change the organization from the ground up.

Brining Innovation is such a transformation and recognizing this is the first step to win this game.

Bringing Innovation 101: The New Game

Innovation is everywhere; soon every company in the plant is going to claim, even someone will be there to certify you as an innovator.

Often, I get calls from Indian based IT companies to train their employees on innovation, though I am glad that someone in those companies recognized the value of innovation.

But the real question is ‘is it that simple?’

When we faced similar situation in the name of Quality, many IT companies missed the opportunity and fooled themselves in the name of certification.

Let’s not make the same mistake,

This is a great opportunity, an opportunity to correct our mistakes, an opportunity to transform every organization and individual to their highest potential, and an opportunity to make difference.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant

There is an interesting analysis by Gartner on offshore application service vendors, to help the commercial enterprises in the US and UK, select the right  offshore vendor.

The result is represented in what they call, Magic Quadrant ,  a graph  where these vendors can be grouped into Leaders, Challengers, Niche Players and Visionaries

Though all the major companies, including TCS, Infosys, IBM, Accenture, etc, are managed to get a place in this Quadrant, none of them are recognized as a Visionaries.

It clearly shows the vacant, a simple to way differentiate in the crowded market place,

If you are a small growing IT service company, start focusing on innovation and WoW, not just on cost and delivery.