Innovation from insight

Corporate Leadership Institute has formed an alliance with Optimus Solutions to boost innovation in India.

The evidence is clear, profit comes from innovation," says David Wittenberg, all four syllables of that last word voiced with clear-cut emphasis.

"Clear" the evidence may be, but to many in business, the case is mostly circumstantial "" even abstract. Something to nod in customary acquiesence to, and then get back to the hard business of crunching numbers.

They're advised not to, says Ajay Gupta. At least not until they've heard what Wittenberg and he have to say. "We do have an active culture of innovation in India," Gupta adds, "but we're weak in execution."

Wittenberg is director of the innovation workgroup at Optimus Solutions, a consultancy based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Gupta is chief of Corporate Leadership Institute (CLI), a consultancy based in Delhi dedicated to bringing cutting-edge business practices to India. In a partnership struck last week, the two hope to engage corporate executives in India via a series of workshops.

Wittenberg seems keenest on India's outsourcing industry, which needs to ascend the value curve before rival locations steal its cost advantage. His solution: "customer centred innovation".

Apart from the top players, the industry is not doing too much of its own thinking, in his analysis: "Indian firms write code to requirements, but if there's the slightest deviation, it's a problem. So everything has to be micromanaged. The result: what looks like a 40 per cent advantage in cost, turns out to be a 4 per cent advantage in cost. And there's no shortage of intelligence here."

If that sounds harsh, hear this: "Even in the manufacturing sector, Indian companies don't lack the competence to build to specifications, but there's a lack of critical thinking."

What makes Wittenberg say that? "I've seen it. I've spoken with American companies dealing with Indian suppliers," he says, citing some instances of Indian suppliers getting foxed "when it came to exceptions" to the preset work format. The reason, he reckons, is poor understanding of the customer's needs, worsened by far too many internal barriers to innovation.

The optimus modus operandi: "We go in and get people to look at customers. Successful innovation begins with customer insight. Then, we help organisations learn how to lower barriers to ideation and how to take ideas from concept to solutions faster and less expensively."

And the most unlikely of companies can do it. In America, Pitney Bowes would've been happy doing what it did: running its routine business of postage metres.

But it went the innovation way, hired scientists, anthropologists and other thinkers, and ended up enhancing printing technology. Its latest idea: personal gizmos for the household user to print her own stamps. "They got into the customer's brain," says Wittenberg.

Plenty of that's happening in India, says Gupta, it's just that it needs to invade the broader realm of business as well. Among other things, this could mean attaining a higher degree of comfort with what tend to be seen as grey areas.