56th Session of the EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 on The 5 Steps to innovate Within an organisation by V.R. Ferose, SAP Labs

Posted by Paritosh Sharma

February 5, 2010

(5 votes, average: 4.4 out of 5)

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So, we again have an almost full room at the NASSCOM HQ, with Avinash, introducing Mr. Ferose and the NASSCOM EMERGE Friday’s 2.0. I am glad to be bringing you LIVE the 56th session which leaves me, with another session to be completing my half century with the EMERGE Friday’s 2.0  :)

Interestingly we are going to have, more of a discussion with lot of participation from the audience as well. So we have VR Ferose introducing SAP to the audience and well sure the figures are enough to raise many an eyebrow Interestingly in India SAP has a presence of over 5000 people and Ferose started his career as a developer and today is the Managing Director.

Amazing to know at such a young age Ferose has risen across the corporate hierarchy and today he is going to speak from experience of transforming a small LAB into an innovation engine.

Route 128 in Boston: well it was the silicon valley in the 60’s. In 1960’s the SV had started and nobody cared a damn. Ferose is talking about how in 60’s there were these amazingly big companies at route 128 and how by the 80’s it did not exist and all exited was the Silicon valley.

In SV the ecosystem was that of young entrepreneurs, with different people with different skill sets and look at SV today. Creating the context, Ferose says almost 2.5 years back I got the role of the MD SAP Labs and the numbers to prove that we were an innovation lab were not really impressive and hence I said, lets see fundamentally and I went to the kind of the people we have. I picked up couple of people across the company and asked them as to what was their friend circle like and almost 95% had similar gentry across.

Everyone was connected to each other similar and hence I said, that Innovation has to happen when you have ideas from ac ross the poeple you have.

Now I cannot influence a person to have friends who are Non IT and hence I went ahead creating an environment of innovation in the company and hence I got started doing something like the EMERGE Sessions, and the first time I got an author to talk and well, people were surely skeptical and to pull people in we said everyone who comes to the session gets a FREE book, and wow we had lots of people. The next time, it was a house full and we said we need to replicate our success.

If you need to create a culture, you need to do things again and again and again and hence we got Social Entrepreneurs to talk. And well, these are the best people to talk to, coz they create out of need not money. And to create a culture of innovation I got 52 speakers which were non IT, from Sir Mark Tulli to Ms. Kiran Bedi and well the biggest hit were social entrepreneurs.

There is no dearth of ideas, but to be able to productize and monetize an ideas the difficult part. To innovate you have to have the right environment

Somebody asked me, can you tell me one tangible result out of these sessions? Well, I had one of the biggest ideas which came out of one of these sessions which was taken up by SAP and hence we got one of the biggest ideas which had us capturing the Sports vertical and we created something called SAP (sports administration product) by SAP.

You never know who in the audience will get what idea, out of just talking says Ferose. When do you learn the most as a human being, well, when you are a kid. And well, Ferose WOW’s everyone in the room by giving what he calls the 5 pillars of learning and well, I am surely blown off and have an Idea striking my mind. Learn from your peers says Ferose, learn from your leaders around.

You need to get back the ability to learn

The question is: How do we get Innovation right?

1. Create a environment for Innovation
2. Be Paranoid – If you dont innovate others will. Look for Co-innovation
   1. In SAP we created something called the Co-innovate lab and well, if you have something amazing, well come to us and we will innovate
3. There is a great idea lying around
   1. and Ferose shares an amazing story of the “coffee mug holder” to save power
   2. If somebody has a great idea, you should make that route as short as possible
4. Execute on an Idea (this is the most difficult part)
5. Never Give UP!

Well, now we have Ferose sharing an amazing idea, and believe you me, this is one moment in the EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 which is making me smile and energized with a wow. This is absolutely fantastic.

A lot of good ideas in BIG companies dont materialize since they just dont have the time

SAP has been in business since many many years but till date we have not got it right, but what we did right was that we had one KILLER product and well, we are still strong on it.

You have to start thinking from a completely different perspective and that is when you will get innovation right. And now we have Feroze sharing statistics of what worked after he joined in as the MD and wallah, the figures surely raise thoughts.

And now we have Ferose sharing an online tool within the SAP labs, which allows the employees to put in all their ideas and how it goes through the Hill View Funnel at (SAP) and well, this is highly interesting to know as to how really its critical to establish and sustain innovation.

Well, we have the session coming to an end with Ferose sharing the magic mantra of his growth:

• Align your career on your strengths

very early I knew what I was good at and hence I went ahead with the strong flow.

In this whole world there are two people you can’t choose, one is your parents and the other your boss. Hence you have to be fortunate to work with a good boss. At times very good people get stuck with lousy people.

• I took some very very calculated risks.

I have done every role for 2 years and I feel, if I give you two years to prove yourself and if you can’t prove yourself, even If I give you 5, you still would not be able to.

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