Iridium V iPod - A Short Case Study

IRIDIUM: A dream project by Motorola started in 1989. The plan was to provide connectivity anywhere in the world using satellites. After 9 years of intense R&D, the product was launched in 1998. This was a break through innovation as far as technology was concerned. Never in the history there was an offering so unique and innovative. The project was huge in terms of money spent and new technologies developed for the purpose (about USD 6 billion, 1000 patents). During its launch, the handsets were offered at USD 300 and call rates were between $3 and $8. Motorola went into deep financial trouble, main reason was at the same time GSM services were offered at USD 30 and call rates were as low as USD 1. Though the technology offered was unparallel, the premature launch of technology found no takers in the practical world.

IPod: Free digital downloads were offered free on the web by napster.com which became a rage among music lovers. Napster got into patent issues with the music industry and had to wind up free services. Apple a predominantly IT company saw business opportunity. Apple started a new concept iTunes, the affordable downloads made the customer happy and its licensing policy made the music companies also agreeable to the downloads concept. Apple integrated music and Sony’s Walkman idea and gave a new offering called iPod. The rest is history; iPod created waves and made successful innovation.

The Key Learnings:

1. Though both the products had technological innovation, iPod saw huge success because it incorporated entire technology with business model.

2. Premature launch of a superior technology made IRIDIUM to lose ground. (IRIDIUM is now used for high-tech warfare by US army)

3. For any innovation to succeed it must necessarily be useful and also affordable to the end user.

4. Innovation based on user’s expectation often finds success.

5. Proper management of Innovation is very crucial.

Moderator: Dr.Nirmalya Bagchi

Centre for Innovation and Technology, ASCI - Hyderabad
3rd March 2010

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IPL in Business Field

Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The challenge of India

Innovation Forum @ IIM Bengaluru
11th March 2010

Background: Prof. Rishikesha T .Krishnan spoke on his book “Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge of India”. India is on the centrestage with China making headlines world over in all sectors. Innovation is also on the radar, but sadly there are not much of results. The statistics are not very interesting as far as practical innovations are concerned. There may have been numerous incremental innovations that are genuine to the sub-continent but there have been no significant breakthrough innovations that would impact the world.

Question by a participant: Do Indian organizations need to follow innovation techniques that have been formulated by international organizations? India has been adopting systems left by the colonial rulers and these systems are seemingly unsuitable. Similarly, instead of blindly adopting systems framed by others, will customized Innovation techniques based on the strong holds of Indian talent render more quantifiable results?

Answer by Prof. Rishikesha: Probably yes. But unfortunately there have been no instances where a different (Indian) innovation technique has been adopted and experimented. Probably such localized plans will certainly lead to better results among innovators. Even today Indians talk about “zero” and “aryabhata”, trump cards as far as innovation is concerned. Systematic Innovation is still waiting to happen in India.

Thought-provoking topic: “Should organizations think beyond the existing Innovation techniques and focus on customizing systems to the prevailing work-talent environments??”

Innovation for the Knowledge-Enabled Enterprise

Talk by: Mr. Raj Datta

Vice President & Chief Knowledge Officer, MindTree  Ltd,

@ CII-Innovation forum – IIM Bangalore

11th March 2010
First part: Knowledge Management (KM) is an important aspect if Innovation has to happen in any organization. Most of the Knowledge Management strategies are formulated for the “I Know-What I know” category. The other categories of “I Know-What I don’t know, I don’t know-what I know & I don’t know-what I don’t know” require strategies for discovery, learning and knowledge creation. A typical TRIZ analysis shows the details of “degree of inventiveness” and its success rate. A knowledge management should have an organic approach. Most current KM strategies have managed and & controlled processes with centralized intranet repository. But this system has some problems like not providing required attention to traits like human desires, relationship, ideation, knowledge creation and innovation. This ultimately renders the KM strategy less efficient and will not deliver required results.

Second part: Knowledge management at ‘MindTree'.

KM Mission: To establish systems, processes & culture that help to continuously build Intellectual capital

To achieve the above mentioned KM mission a “Knowledge Ecosystem” was devised. At the core of the ecosystem lies –Imagination, Action and Joy, followed by CLASS Value (CLASS is an acronym; each alphabet represents a particular core value). Around these core values there are four spheres – Mind space, Virtual space, Physical space and Social space. Each of these spheres is then elaborated into particular activities defining their goals individually but collaborating with the larger aspect of achieving goals.

Knowledge Management journey pyramid depicts “SHARE” at the first level followed by “COLLABORATE” and at the pinnacle lies “INNOVATE”. The three put together nutshells the whole process of achieving innovation through Knowledge Management.

Spectrums of Communities:

Osmosis: A tech-fest devised to bring in new wave of innovation among employees. Contests organized developed keen participants vying to win the prizes. K-Safaris, K-Cafes would generate more enthusiasm for the innovators and others as well. “Unconference” would allow the innovator to break the orthodoxies and think differently. A unique theme for Osmosis – “Celebration of the Nerd within”, which has a pleasant logo as well.

Connected Minds: A community portal with an active participation of innovative minds of ‘MindTree’. This is to provide a space to interact, exchange and propose ideas.

Open Mind & Tech works: In this spectrum a system was developed to assist collaborative IP creation and also reuse the knowledge generated. What started with just 8 entries today boasts of 350+ ongoing ‘Tech works’ and a healthy base of 85+ reusable ‘Techworks’.

Project space: Collaboration was made at project and account level allowing ideas to grow to next level. To nurture ideas and have systematic innovation a “NEURON” concept was introduced which paid rich dividends in terms of success.

Physical space: It is imperative that physical space is also required for ideation and MindTree created such physical spaces for its employees.

The Outcome: Today 24% ideas are deployed, 10 Patent Applications have been filed. In just 3 years these results were achieved. Adopting KM strategies MindTree has been successful in triggering innovation in the organization; 'MindTree' has won various awards and stands tall as a leading trend setter.