Performance through Innovation

Innovation to me is finding something of value to society/people through research/or understanding that ultimately solves a present or unknown problem or in other words innovation brings value to people’s life. With the above stated definition, innovation is definitely the reason why we can be thankful for the many new conveniences of the 21st century. Throughout the last decade innovation has been the life line to new product development and a better standard of living. These products have ranged from the development of the internet to more simple pricing strategy such as the launching of 1p/sec by GSM operator “TATA DOCOMO” Unfortunately “I” in India stood for Imitation for long but now I think it stands for “Innovation” So which are the companies who bring value to people’s life with their innovative products & solutions ? To find the answer, a joint survey was conducted by business magazine and Research organisation. They surveyed more than 75 senior executives across sectors (nearly half of them through in-depth interviews) on their innovation related attitudes, beliefs and practices. Based on which the survey tried to find the top innovative companies in India. TOP INNOVATIVE COMPANIES IN INDIA ( Not necessary in order) • Tata Consultancy services : TCS’ flagship research center, TCS Innovation Labs - TRDDC was established in 1981, when IT had barely emerged as an industry. Today, TCS has a global network of laboratories that provide an environment for sophisticated IT research in leading-edge technologies as well as in various domains. A no. of innovative solutions emerging from TCS labs has won many national and international awards. • TATA DOCOMO : TATA DOCOMO have been forefront in coming up with various attractive pricing schemes especially in the pay-per-use paradigm. They were first to introduce pay per second billing on calls, which now is followed by every mobile service provider. The brand stands for doing the new and its spirit of innovation. In the last 18 months TATA DOCOMO has changed the face of telecom in India with its revolutionary tariffs and services as well as its innovative marketing. Many independent observers refer to Tata DOCOMO as a “child of Social Media”. In effect that is quite close to being the strategy for Tata DOCOMO even before the time the brand was officially unveiled. When Tata DOCOMO was planning to enter the Indian market as the 9th GSM operator, it faced entrenched incumbents and strong brand communication barriers from other telecom operators. However Tata DOCOMO's team was determined to change the game and cut through the clutter through pure innovation and doing the New. At the very core of the Social Media strategy was the idea of humanizing a telecom brand that makes it warm, friendly and conversational. The strategy was simple yet engaging. Reach out to every corner of the web and to every possible TG not as a corporate brand but as a friend willing to engage the consumer in a one-on-one dialogue on anything and everything pertaining to the brand, its offers, its deficiencies as well as anything to do with telecom per say. The desired outcome was clear in everyone’s mind – to build the most loyal set of beta customers who will champion the brand in their micro-communities at every moment. Social Media became the first opportunity which had not been picked up by most Indian brands in June 2009 leave alone the telecom operators. It was unchartered waters but they knew that Social Media connects people with the exact TG that the brand wanted to associate with. It further had the wow element and was clearly doing the New by involving people, the perfect reason for Tata DOCOMO to draw up an extensive strategy to harness the power of Social Media and build the brand with its consumers. • Bharti Airtel: Innovation was not a choice for Bharti Airtel but a necessity. For achieving the lowest costs for the production of minutes in India, they need to have the lowest cost possible. They therefore launched in 2002 a unique business model featuring outsourcing the five big portions of operations. Bharti Airtel, has also established the Future Factory— a “center of innovation” that aims to develop innovative applications specifically targeted at individual customer segments. • Mahindra & Mahindra: The Group is among the top industrial houses in India and its managing director Anand Mahindra has put innovation at the core of its growth strategy. Emphasis is placed on managing the balance between structured processes and the creation of an environment in which radical innovations can succeed. Be it a soft-top, 10-seater rural transport vehicle (Commander), an urban utility vehicle (Armada), or a stylish and contemporary sports utility vehicle (Scorpio), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has been innovating its way up in the auto industry & Telecom solutions • Tata Motors: Because a promise is a promise”. With those words Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata gave India its newest ‘people’s car “ TATA NANO” and brought paradigm shift in automotive industry. • Air Deccan: A man, credited for revolutionizing air travel and making it affordable in India, is Captain Gopinath, CEO, Air Deccan. It was first airline in India to set up a dedicated SMS service for flight updates. Apart from keeping passengers informed about flight timings, they use SMSes internally: SMSes are sent to engineers regarding aircraft maintenance, top executives can be SMSed to collate or disperse information regarding collections, revenues, load factors etc on an hourly basis or even as a pull mechanism. Best part of Air Deccan is the way they achieved operation excellence.. • Jet Airways: For two years, as the airline worked on its award-winning first-class cabin on its long-haul routes, there was one man paying close attention to the details: Jet Airways’ Chairman Naresh Goyal. “I am rarely satisfied, but I think with this new first-class suite, we will have many satisfied customers,” a beaming Goyal told reporters at the launch. • Maruti-Suzuki India: Maruti Udyog has been credited with bringing the automobile revolution to India. It has recently been honored with 'Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award' for adopting environment friendly technology in its products and processes. • Citibank India: One of my favorite bank and being the customer of this bank I can vouch for its excellent service. They have best internet banking solution & that’s the reason they have won the "Excellence in Internet Banking" for the year 2009 in The Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards Programme. Citibank India's Internet offering was chosen as the best amongst 120 banks and financial institutions from 23 countries across the Asia Pacific, Gulf and Central Asian regions. • HDFC Bank: It is India’s best bank (for the fifth consecutive year, according to a BT- KPMG ranking of banks) for a simple reason: it hasn’t let its rapid growth affect the quality of its service or its profitability. • ICICI Bank: In span of 6 years they have become people’s bank. They are most recognized brand and have made the place in consumer’s heart. Recently they have launched a mobile application (like the Gmail mobile client) for doing mobile banking. It’s called iMobile, any one [currently supported by only symbian phones] can download and install it for free (requires some validation etc.) and use it to pay bills, check balances, check your demat stock holdings [WOW], schedule transfers, locate an atm/branch, order a checkbook or get other services. • Philips Electronics: Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”.. • Samsung Electronics India: The Company’s thrust on Product Innovation and R&D has given the company a competitive edge in the marketplace. Samsung has two Software development centres - Samsung India Software Centre (SISC) and Samsung India Software operations unit (SISO) at Noida and Bangalore respectively. With about a decade of existence, the organization has executed close to 300 projects and has been accredited with the highest software quality certification of CMM Level 5 and ISO 9002. SISO also practices Six Sigma as a management methodology to facilitate innovation and increased productivity.. • ITC: ITC e-Choupal (From Mandi to Market) : When tobacco giant ITC flagged off its agri-business in 1988, it was operating in a protected economy, procuring agri-products from mandis and exporting them. However, the '90s saw the opening up of the Indian economy, bringing opportunity for many—along with more than a few challenges. According to S. Sivakumar, Chief Executive, ITC Agri Business, it was a tense situation and the challenge was to innovate or perish. "We did not have the resources to compete with the global majors with multi origin sourcing capabilities and neither did we want to follow the business model prevalent in the unorganized sector, which gets its margin through contract defaults and tax evasions."ITC realized that by owning the agri-product procurement value chain, they could serve the needs of the end customer better and reduce their "true cost of contract." Because ITC maintained oversight of the goods for a broader part of the chain, buyers were able to realise substantial savings in their true cost of contract, which included, apart from the product cost, other elements like quality variability, cost of delays, warehousing, packing and shipping costs. • Dabur India: Dabur has also made continuous efforts towards technology absorption and innovation, which has contributed towards preserving natural resources The Company has achieved a host of significant benefits in terms of product improvement, cost reduction, product development, import substitution, cleaner environment and waste disposal, amongst others. • LG ELECTRONCS INDIA: 10 years ago, LG India reported revenues of Rs 125 crore. In 2010, that figure stood at Rs 9,500 crore, making LG the #1 consumer durables player in the country. • Marico: Marico is one of India’s leading Consumer Products & Services Group, in the global beauty and wellness space. During 2009-10, Marico recorded a turnover of Rs. 26.6 billion (about USD 600 Million) through its products and services sold in India and 25 other countries in Asia and Africa. Marico touches the lives of 1 out of every 4 Indians, through its portfolio of brands such as Parachute, Parachute Advanced, Saffola, Hair & Care, Nihar, Mediker, Revive and Manjal • Apollo Hospitals: 27 years back they started tryst with excellence. Today the journey has led them to become beacon of hope to millions and India’s most trusted health care provider. • Aravind Eye Care: Medical science has achieved some amazing breakthroughs in terms of innovation, pushing the frontiers of surgery, drug therapy, transplant technology and a host of other research fields to enable more of us to live healthy and dignified lives In the healthcare area one of the powerful examples of such systematic attention to the small stuff which has led to a significant impact are the Aravind eye clinics in India. • Narayana Hrudayalaya: A unique rural healthcare facility ''Hrudaya post'' was launched in Karnataka to enable heart patients in villages, scan and send their medical reports to superspeciality hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya for consultation from a neighborhood post office. The Postal Department and Superspeciality Hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya have joined hands to offer ''Hrudaya Post'. Under the scheme, first of its kind in the history of health care, heart patients in small towns and villages can go to any of the Post office and send their entire medical reports by scanning and uploading to Narayana Hrudayalaya.The Hospital in turn, within 24 hours, after studying the report, would send a detailed report back to the sender thus saving time to visit Heart Specialist for advice. Narayana Hrudayalaya Chairman Dr Devi Shetty said that "Our aim is to link the post offices to our hospital, so that heart patients living in small town and villages can get medical advice at their door step. Bottom line: Innovation for companies is not so different from Darwin’s evolution for creatures. Those that are not able to adapt to changing environmental conditions eventually disappear. Does your company have the vision, diversity, flexibility and DNA to survive and flourish? If not then make it happen before it is too late. References: Business Today Magazine. The above mentioned Organization’s respective official website.