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Innovation — the new buzzword in IT

WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITIES: A lab replicating an aircraft at a TCS centre in Chennai

Innovation has become the buzzword for information technology companies across the world as it strives to push growth. Indian companies, too, are betting big on innovation in all areas of operation, be it business models, human resources, customer offerings and core operations. It is increasingly accepted that the only way companies can thrive in a challenging and globalised business environment is through innovation.

Innovation — the successful exploitation of new ideas, incorporating new technologies, design and best practice – is the key business process that enables IT companies to compete effectively in the global arena.

Today, most IT companies — TCS, Satyam, Cognizant — are setting up Innovation labs to attract and help clients do pilot projects and run proof-of-concept exercises and identify the best solutions to compete in a rapid time-to-market race.

The five key imperatives in setting up these labs are: (1) establishing a strong brand for the technology leadership; (2) leading the company’s technology ecosystem across clients; (3) enabling multilateral bodies, academic institutions and venture capital firms to own and guide the technology innovation life cycle; (4) helping companies to own technology intellectual property process in the organisation and (5) providing active technology guidance and mentorship to the core businesses.

Today, clients come to the innovation labs to see for themselves what the company has to offer. The days of giving power point presentation to the clients are slowly on the wane, says G. Raghavan, Global Head (Travel and Hospitality), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Innovation is largely about developing and bringing to market a stream of new or improved value-added products, services or business models that create higher margins and increase profits to re-invest in the business, he says. There are 19 TCS innovation labs for various verticals spread across the globe, and of this, four are in Chennai.

Similarly, Satyam has six innovation labs. It has an automotive lab (this is operational but formal launch is yet to happen), HeraFxV project, a digital car project, and the Futurus Lab at the Tidel Park. Cognizant has five focused innovation labs in Chennai.

The biggest advantage is that these labs are well networked with external academia and industry experts and provide an environment conducive for harbouring sophisticated research.

While many locations in India have technology-centric innovation labs, Chennai has the unique distinction of having innovation labs that are at the inter-section of business and technology.

Cognizant’s innovation lab focused on the retail industry, Satyam’s lab for the automotive industry, and TCS addresses the needs of the airline industry.

TCS has joined hands with British Airways to work on the solution that could become an ‘industry standard’ and would commercially made available for other airlines too. This is being developed at the TCS Travel and Hospitality Innovation Lab in Chennai.

TCS is now building a cabin crew software management solution for British Airways at the lab to help the airline monitor its 15,000-plus cabin crew located at Heathrow and Gatwick in the U.K., and at international locations such as Buenos Aires, Delhi and Bahrain.

Mr. Raghavan says that with this lab “we can present a demo to British Airways on what they want to do with an IT system”.

Satyam, which has decided to tap the growing potential of manufacturing and automotive industry in Chennai, has decided to have high-end research and designing in Chennai. It has partnered various international automobile giants and has been doing jobs for them here. The collaboration design enables Satyam to work simultaneously with multiple research and development institutions across the world, says Subu D. Subramanian, Director and Senior Vice President, Satyam.

According to Mr. Subramanian, Satyam has set up a lab that provides research support services (all in digital form) in alternative fuels, hybrid engines, virtual test drive solutions and emerging infotainment. These innovation labs provide companies an opportunity to create intellectual property (IP) and solutions along with clients, he says.

Congizant has five focused innovation labs in Chennai. In the technology labs, the predominant profile will be technocrats, architects and system experts. In the business-technology labs, it will be domain experts, functional consultants and technology architects. “At Cognizant, we believe that no innovation is fruitful if it does not result in business value. Cognizant has a decentralised approach to innovation with coordination at the centre so that innovation stays closer to the context of relevance. This works well with our verticalised and customer-centric business model,” according to Vaidya Nathan, Global Innovation Leader, Cognizant.

With newer models and capabilities coming up in the business world, the innovations that are incubated in ‘Concept Labs’ are much broader in scope and multi-disciplinary and cross-functional in nature, says he. “We partner a wider eco-system, including our customers, to drive innovation. These innovations are then presented through our ‘experience centres’, a place where concepts are put out for the customers to experience them and look for adapting and/or adopting them for their business benefits,” he points out.

These labs are so sophisticated that there are minimum human interventions. The labs create a replica of the vertical, which they handle. For example, TCS has the lab in the shape of an aircraft and in Satyam, it has a automated robot that will accompany visitors.

SHANTHI KANNAN

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