In March 2015, Srini Koushik as the President and CEO
of the NTT Innovation Institute in Palo Alto visited us in Munich before his
keynote presentation for a customer workshop. I took this opportunity to do an
interview on his view on innovation & product lifecycle management.
Srini, please
introduce yourself to our readers.
I was both a developer of technology and consumer of
technology. My background is more in “applied innovation” than core innovation.
My focus has always been on how to use technology to improve things in
enterprise settings. I started as a developer at IBM research and global
services, became an architect and a distinguished engineer and ended up writing
a couple of books, e.g. “Patterns for eBusiness” in 2001. Then I went on to be CIO
& CTO at Nationwide Insurance for close to 10 years. The whole focus
shifted from developing technologies to applying technology in an enterprise setting.
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| Srini Koushik, President & CEO of NTT Innovation Institute Inc. |
So with the
combined role of CIO & CTO, you contributed to the core business of the
company?
That’s one of the changes that I was pushing for at
Nationwide because I think IT in many places tends to be more of a support
function and not integrated into the core of the business. I think for today’s
digital businesses, IT has to be part of the core business. That’s a change a
lot of CIOs are beginning to recognize. For a company to be successful, IT has
to move away from being that order-taker / enabler role to someone who is
actually involved with and driving the innovation in the business.
Who is driving
innovation for digital businesses – IT or the business?
In the best case, it is a collaborative approach. The
big shift I see in successful companies is IT moving away from saying “no” most
of the time because of cost, standards, security etc. and helping to drive
innovation in the business. On the other hand, the business is realizing they
cannot be market leaders without technology.
What is the Mission
of the NTT Innovation Institute Inc. (NTT i3, pronounced NTT
i-cubed)?
We have 2 objectives: the 1st one is to help
increase revenue for our operating companies (NTT DATA, NTT Communications, Dimension
Data). We do this by the development of platforms for cloud and security and
others. We don’t take these platforms to market directly, but through the
operating companies.
The 2nd objective is to make sure that NTT Group is viewed as a global innovator. In order to do that, we have to do the R&D and forward looking research that helps position all of us as thought leaders in the market place.
The 2nd objective is to make sure that NTT Group is viewed as a global innovator. In order to do that, we have to do the R&D and forward looking research that helps position all of us as thought leaders in the market place.
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| NTT Innovation Institute Inc. |
Tell us about
the NTT i3 approach on innovation.
Well, we believe in applied R&D – as discussed
earlier - and open innovation. Innovation is not something you can do in one
single place, you can’t have a center that does innovation for you. By
definition, innovation comes from merging of ideas from different places.
Sometimes it comes from our employees, sometimes it comes from our customers or
competitors. We make sure that we have a completely open view on where we’re
going to get the ideas from.
How do you
think about intellectual property protection in this open innovation approach?
All of us who have been in corporate settings have
been taught to become convergent thinkers: here is a problem – how do I solve
it? You define alternatives and narrow them down to a solution. We believe that
innovation is a divergent process. Some of the best innovative solutions come
from the combination of ideas, e.g. someone from the financial services
industry listening to an automotive expert and modifying the concepts just a
little bit for his environment. We believe in going out and listening to as
many solutions as possible. Instead of narrowing them down to solutions, we try
to build upon them.
Only when you get into the implementation of a specific solution, then you want to protect the IP. One of the reasons why Silicon Valley works so well is the spirit of “no patents in the early ideation phase”.
Only when you get into the implementation of a specific solution, then you want to protect the IP. One of the reasons why Silicon Valley works so well is the spirit of “no patents in the early ideation phase”.
What else is
so special about Silicon Valley as an innovation environment?
A key to success is the availability of experts and their
willingness to spend time with each other. There are hundreds of people ready
to help you. They may be billionaires who started up other companies and
competitors, but everyone will take the time to sit down with you and share
ideas. But after you get there, it’s a race. Everyone is trying to figure out
how to implement that idea. The ability to execute on ideas is key.
A lot of large companies make mistakes when they setup
these labs in Silicon Valley and implement the same management model as in
their home countries. They bring their company culture into the valley and
expect different results. I think it’s important to recognize that when you’re
coming into the valley, you have to have a good mix of people and cultures.
People from Germany and Japan have a lot of shared culture in terms of
engineering discipline and quality, but this can also get into the way of innovation.
Because you deliver quality by eliminating variability, but innovation by
definition is challenging this process.
What are the
focus topics for NTT i3?
We are focused on applied R&D for cloud, security
and network function virtualization. We are not very big, so we focus on
research in specific emerging areas such as machine learning and Internet of
Things. We actually call it a social network of things because we believe that
these devices don’t act in isolation, they actually collaborate with one
another and they share information, so it is very much like a social network.
How do you
organize your team at NTT i3?
If you truly believe in the divergent thinking
approach then you have to build a team made up of people from different
backgrounds. So I have a lot of really good scientists, they are experts in
security, machine learning etc. But I also have 10-12 people on my team with
very little technology background. As an example, I just hired a person with
three degrees in nano technologies, so that he can sit down with the rest of my
team and they can combine ideas.
How do you transfer
your results to the operating companies?
We have different maturity across the globe in terms
of using our technology. A key to success is speed to market, so we cannot
develop our platforms and then spend one year on training. Instead, we are
identifying the areas and people with the right skills to bring our
technologies to the market. This is definitely work-in-progress and we
appreciate any input from our operating companies to improve this process.
What is your
view on the relationship between innovation and product development?
Innovation is a divergent process, product development
has to be a convergent process because you cannot work on 20 ideas in parallel
and deliver results. The one thing I would like to add to this is that
continuous innovation has to be integrated into the product development
process. Most of our products are software platforms. This field changes so
quickly, that we cannot afford 12-18 months product development cycles, so we
have to incorporate continuous innovation into the product development. We have
this in common with the automotive industry, they also have to make sure that the
product stays current in 3-4 year development cycles. In NTT i3, we
use a process called “agile product lifecycle management”. It allows us to
constantly look at changes in the market and work that into the overall
process. The stage 1 is about ideation and proof of concepts. Once that is
done, we create the “minimum viable product” and put it in front of our
customers to get feedback. We iterate through this stage 2 frequently. After
that, we take the product to general availability. These concepts are not only
valid for software development, but can be applied to other product development
settings.
Thank you very
much, Srini. How can we get more information?
Please visit our website on http://www.ntti3.com for access to
our publications and views on digital business. I’m also available on Twitter as
@skoushik.
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Cross post from NTT DATA blog on http://emea.nttdata.com/blog/en/2015/05/03/innovation-the-ntt-i3-way/
