Winning through Innovation
Written by Professor Dr Anjana Grewal- Senior Professor and Director – Centers of Excellence
In a discussion between Prof Maurizio Poli –PGPB Program Director-MISB Bocconi, and myself a few months ago, he requested that I initiate work on a Leadership Series for PGPB4 for the month of Jan 2017. While immersing myself in how to generate value for students who will be graduating shortly, my thoughts gravitated to an area which is very close to my heart and that is “Innovation”. With all my years in the industry be it FMCG or Financial Services, where I have led several successful initiatives what distinguished most of them were “creativity” and “innovation” which led to new market spaces and added strongly to business volumes.
We therefore designed a course which was a fusion of theory combined with experience sharing by senior industry leaders from varied industry domains to add a richness to the course and the student learning. The journey for us has been extremely satisfying. A yardstick we used for our invitations to industry leaders was the International Forbes 100 list of top companies in Innovation. This added a great deal of insight and value in the search process which was undertaken by myself and Amit- (team member)
The experience was exciting, rich and revealing. The design and thought process was supported by our seniors- MD-Mr Alessandro Giuliani and Prof Maurizio Poli. We also roped in the assistance of Prof Paola Bielli to add an American touch to our invitations.
The week began with Prof Deependra Moitra, who kick-started with-“What spurs innovation in companies? Creative people, visionary leaders, or organizational culture- Innovation creating competitive advantage?”
Then followed company experiences: Vishal Kapoor –Chief Design Officer- Future Group. He help business use design at a strategic and corporate level to increase performance and profitability.My key contribution has been in identifying the Customer Experience and Service key touch points and core Brand Values in a business and then being able to create coherent and well planned strategies for implementation, which are focused on creating tangible bottom line results.
Design- A noun or a verb?
And Koustav Dasgupta-Head Conduent Labs India (earlier co name: Xerox)- special algorithms which will cut search time. He leads a world-class research organization in a wide range of activities related to platform modernization, business process automation and optimization, data analytics, mobility and user experience.
On Friday we had with us Roberto Evaristo-Ph.D – from Outthink, LLC-Management Consulting who will weave in his innovation experience at 3 M.
He was honored at 3M to receive the Pyramid of Excellence Award for efficiency and growth on global sales. My approach has been used by corporate, non-profit and government entities including NASA – JPL, Sustainability Victoria (Australia), the city of Ann Arbor, and Washtenaw County.
As an author, professor, and speaker, he presents to IT, M&A and business groups including World Bank and The Conference Board on topics related to Being Efficient at Being Efficient.
More next week.
