Dear SAPians,
Most of the companies are in dilemma (Including SAP) on how to make innovation a way of life, experts are discussing and working on finding out strategies to ensure that they remain ahead in the game of finding out new ideas to ensure a consistent growth. But to be at the forefront of this battle while bringing new constructive ideas is becoming much more difficult, as its very hard for companies to inculcate this cultural change in DNA of the organization. The companies which are leading the race to win market are always ahead of their competitors because of their ability to think first and implement first and question remain same for all those who are still struggling to think & act. I think most of the time, the key difference between a growing company and a well-established company is: Number of ideas and respect for them internally.
Also, an open question with most of the companies is: why it’s really becoming difficult to bring out new ideas in the organization and what could be the most effective way to bring this cultural change? Answer of this somehow lies in how organization thinks about an idea. Most of the time the focus is on first thinking big ideas and then making investments on them but somehow this is the fundamental problem of today.
An idea which is most simple and easy to implement is somehow ignored in this whole process of thinking BIG. There are many examples in the past where big companies did not value a simple idea but kept on investing on BIG idea’s which they later realized as a failed strategy ,there are many examples in the technology space which justifies this e.g.. Google, Facebook, Whatsapp etc. So the question comes “Why don’t we start thinking simple ideas and start respecting them”? The process of simplified thinking is not only easy but could also change the game easily for companies like us i.e. SAP who has all strength in proven technologies. To understand the power of simple thinking, we should just not start with finding solutions, new innovations, patents etc. but also start thinking about PROBLEMS around us. In our day to day life and in the society around us, we always see many problematic situations without appropriate solutions but instead of realizing that there is a problem, we start believing that things can’t change and start becoming part of the problem. With this simplified thinking, rather than thinking for a solution first, we should be looking to find problems and encourage people to think about problem & issues. As humans, we are very good in finding problems and issues around us but feel limited to solve these problems. This limitation of ours to solve a problem but to put all our energy only for the problem can also be a great strength for all of us at SAP.
So with this simplified thinking, we should encourage people around us to Identify problems which they think are not having any solution and I am sure that we will have many answers for the same. Once the real problems are identified then it could be very simple to solve them with the technology available to us. What if in SAP, we start having a MAGIC BOX where all of us share/submit the problems which are not solved currently and reward people to share these problems. Best of these problems which are not solved should be taken forward to resolve with the technologies around us and would not be surprised if we have some great applications coming from SAP with this simple approach like making a cup of tea and get refreshed.
