Café Innovation Blog

[Cross-posted from SAP Community Network: Puneet Suppal’s SAP Network Blog ]

In the cover story of the June 15, 2009, issue of Business Week, titled, “Innovation Interrupted,” Michael Mandel makes the argument that during “the last decade, U.S. innovation has failed to realize its promise-and that may help explain America’s economic woes.” If it is true for a nation that competitiveness and good economic health are tied to innovation, then why would this not be true for a business enterprise?

The article referenced above lists a number of technological breakthroughs in 1998 that did not live up to their commercial promise for a variety of reasons. Fortunately for business enterprises, unlike a national economy, they can coordinate the efforts to innovate with the drive to deliver value to the business, thus substantially limiting the pitfalls that can jeopardize success. Targeted innovation with a recognized area of business value can be the impetus to keep driving excellence even in a downturn, thus leading to a better utilization of existing investments and eventually to enhanced competitiveness.  This will ensure that innovation in business processes today will not amount to unrealized value several years later.

In order to succeed in this, however, one needs to approach innovation in a balanced way. On the one hand, one cannot approach innovation in a regimented manner. I am not suggesting that this be done laissez faire, but at the same time I caution against the old-fashioned command-and-control type of project approach well suited to traditional projects. The goal should be to balance creativity with some basic discipline; in other words, unfettered creativity within established boundaries. One of the things that all organizations must grapple with now is the rapidly growing preponderance of social networking tools. In this same article, the pervasiveness of Google, Facebook, Twitter, smart-phones etc. is cited as evidence of rapid innovation all around us. We must take this seriously. These have become the tools we live by. What was an optional “extra” on the fringes of the organization will soon have to become mainstream thus demanding that any business process renewal take into account how people really interact and how that can best be used to drive effective behavior. An example of how important these tools have become is apparent from recent events.

Iran is experiencing significant political turbulence which the free world is learning of through social networking tools! The court-side view of what is increasingly appearing to be a revolution-like situation is made possible by those who Twitter! This in turn is creating its own political force, for it is recognized inside Iran that the world is aware of what the people of Iran wish to express. If this turbulence in Iran snowballs into a revolution of some sort, we might have to credit Twitter as one of the instruments involved in this slice of history! Unprecedented perhaps, but significant nevertheless. At the time of writing this post it is unclear how things will shape up, but one thing is very clear – the information coming out of Iran despite the heavy clamp-down on traditional media outlets is taking advantage of people-centric technology. Videos taken by mobile phones are making their way out, and a continuous stream of updates are using Twitter. In fact, earlier today Twitter had to re-adjust its schedule for routine maintenance in order to stay available during Iran’s daytime hours!

This shows the extent to which, even in societies that we might consider less modern, people-centric technology is impacting daily lives. In other parts of the world, individuals who live by these tools are increasingly bringing these into the workplace. The smart option is to build the solutions of tomorrow whether on SAP or not taking this into account. The use of mashups (web hybrid applications) should leverage these increasingly, making the enterprise solution of tomorrow a true expression of how people want to conduct business.

– Puneet Suppal [Enterprise SOA Solutions & Innovation – Capgemini]

[Cross-posted from SAP Community Network: Puneet Suppal’s SAP Network Blog ]

This year was the most lightly attended SAPPHIRE in years, and I don’t believe the H1N1 virus had much to do with it. But the attendees were a very serious bunch. They were focused on solutions and had specific questions and needs. The SAP ecosystem made a strong showing, and hopefully many attendees came away satisfiedThe one thing that should have struck them is the discussion of the Clear Enterprise. I have had interesting conversations with several people who dismiss this as a “marketing thing.” Others, are not sure what to make of it. While the words may have the ring of smart marketing there is a very solid truth behind the message.

SAP’s message on this is that in order to thrive in the current global economic crisis and to emerge successful, enterprises should focus on opening up their silos of information and processes and recognize that emerging technologies will facilitate this process, radically changing the way they will operate in the future. On the surface of it this is not a dramatically new statement. What is important to note are the points being made about emerging technologies and imminent radical changes in the way businesses will operate. These points are indicators of innovation; in other words, innovation is bound to happen to ensure enterprises survive and ultimately succeed, and this innovation is bound to happen in the arena of processes (that is what the silo-busting talk is all about). It is up to an enterprise to proactively move in that direction or to be forced to change its approach by the demands of the marketplace and its own internal constituencies.

In an economic downturn, I have found people often balk at the mention of “innovation” thinking that this might imply a major risky venture. What I have frequently said is that often innovation is about the little things we can do to improve, or enrich, seemingly routine processes. That is what SAP is pointing to. By re-crafting processes we indeed open up the possibility of getting away from the silo effect in process and information. As an example, SAPPHIRE also had quite a bit of focus on the SAP Business Objects Portfolio. The Business Objects Explorer (Polestar) is an example of how quickly information can be molded into satisfying user need. This is an instrument, therefore, of realizing the vision of the Clear Enterprise.

In order to realize the Clear Enterprise vision, an organization needs to have the ability to implement solutions that are, in my words, of a “click-to-fit” nature, based on reliable and robust but rapid techniques. These will necessarily require strong business process skills and hence business process experts. I suggest checking out the presentation, “Using New SAP Capabilities for New Business Requirements,” given during SAPPHIRE (http://www.sap.com/community/showdetail.epx?itemID=17743).

For SAP customers the choice is clear – continue to move ahead with the spirit of innovation and inculcate a culture of process. This will enable you to derive greater advantage from your SAP investment. The alternative is characterized by a poorer return on investment.

* NOTE: I apologize for the delay in coming out with this post.

– Puneet Suppal [Enterprise SOA Solutions & Innovation – Capgemini]

[Cross-posted from SAP Community Network: Puneet Suppal’s SAP Network Blog ]

We are less than a week away from SAPPHIRE ’09. I have, in the past, shared my thoughts on key matters after the SAPPHIRE and TechEd events. I promise to do so again after SAPPHIRE this year in Orlando. This year though, I have become privy to certain interesting propositions that will be on offer at SAPPHIRE. In a year when people are having to make discerning decisions as to what event to attend, I feel sharing this might be of use to those attending the event – so I ask for your indulgence (my apologies, if this comes across as a plug for these topics)!

For one, SAP is obviously going to be driving the Business Suite argument and will expectedly make every effort to show how enterprises can gain with this offering together with the SAP Business Objects portfolio. The argument about speed and flexibility is an important one – specially in this day and age given the dynamically changing environment and scarce funds with which to combat it. In this context, a landmark thought leadership white paper* co-authored by Peter Maier (Senior VP, Industry & Suite Marketing, SAP) and Andy Mulholland (Global CTO, Capgemini) will be presented (by them) underscoring some key nuanced points on why the most recent offerings from SAP are different and why they should be important to the SAP ecosystem. This should have an impact on how SAP and its partners approach selling SAP software and services to enterprises and how enterprises and their partners approach implementation of SAP in the future.

Speaking of implementing SAP, there will be a large assembly of SI partners – no surprise! Each one will be attempting to promote their own strengths – again, no surprise! Some of them will likely present unique approaches to implementation – there could be something novel here for the discerning attendee. Often SIs guard their own implementation methodologies rather zealously and are not very interested in opening the proverbial kimono. However, at SAPPHIRE this year there will be an interesting exposition of a book called ArchitectedSAP® (Mendel Koerts and Lucas Osse)*. ArchitectedSAP® is the name the authors have given to a multi-disciplinary end-to-end approach to strategy delivery, helping an enterprise to navigate from strategic intent to delivered change in daily operations. It focuses on the integral application of the services concept in the business and IT domain, specifically SAP-centric ones. This book is intended to provide the enterprise a means to purposefully deal with the dynamics that characterize this era of continuous transformation we are living in, pragmatically linked to IT environments where SAP solutions play a role. It also contains a list of different methodologies that have been successfully tried and tested. For business process experts I see this as an enabling resource for it can boost their own capabilities.

SAP will also be looking to promote its offerings in the arena of providing more “insight” to businesses. The Business Objects Portfolio of offerings should be in sharp focus. In this context, SAP Business Objects Polestar* is likely to be one of the offerings being promoted. A one line summary of its oomph factor would run something like this – it combines the simplicity and speed of search with the trust and analytical power of business intelligence (BI) to provide immediate answers to business questions – the emphasis being on the word immediate. Polestar is designed to leverage the BI platform’s entire range of capabilities and is deployable in days, not months. Since the time-to-value in this case is of such a dramatically short duration, it should be in the “must-be-checked-out” category for SAPPHIRE attendees!

Besides these, there will be the usual quota of announcements from SAP and its partners, but I fully expect to see on-display around the show differentiated offerings from the various SIs and ISVs that inform SAP customers (and prospects) how best to gain additional value from all their existing and future SAP investments. Seek out those that promise to help provide game changing capabilities, for as we have said within this forum, it is not just about surviving this economic downturn, but to take appropriate steps so we come out ahead! Seek out those that are guiding you toward smart innovation – there is at least one joint information session where SAP is promoting the topic of Co-Innovation (COIL)* along with its partner’s RApid INnovation* program. This aspect is geared toward sharing how an enterprise can take actionable steps to unlock greater value from their SAP investment.

If you are attending SAPPHIRE, have a great one. I will return after SAPPHIRE with my next post.

* NOTE: For those interested in knowing more about the above referenced: (a) white paper (Time to Change – New Thoughts on Supporting Business Change Fast and Flexibly) or the related presentation (Insight Session – Save Money, Deliver More, and Do It Fast!); (b) a presentation on Polestar/BWA and the Business User (Insight Session – Get Real – Actual, Practical Insights About Performance from SAP Business Users); (c) the book, ArchitectedSAP®, (d) a presentation on RApid INnovation and SAP Co-Innovation Lab (Insight Session – Fight the Downturn with Innovation!), please visit this Microsite.

– Puneet Suppal [Enterprise SOA Solutions & Innovation – Capgemini]