TRANSFORM 10
| GBS Bindra, Global Innovation Director of Logica, addressed the distinguished gathering at TRANSFORM 10 in the Netherlands, in April 2010. | Key Events |
Growth and Innovation
The history of growth in the world is also the history of innovation.
Computers emerged out of the Great Depression, the Ethernet emerged during the 1970s oil crisis, PCs emerged out of early 1980s recession, and the Web emerged from the recession of the early 1990s.
Many of the world's enduring corporations, from Disney to Microsoft, were born during economic downturns. It will be once again only human imagination, vision and ideas, more than anything else, that will lead us to growth.
Services make up two thirds of European economy. As we look at a decade and a half, it’s clear that ICT plays the single biggest role - in stimulating innovation in the services industry. Online retail and travel, low-cost airlines, online trading, IP telephony, wireless telephony and investment banking are some examples.
ICT stimulates innovation by creating new business models, dramatically improving supply-chains, creating new customer experiences, helping to manage risks, and helping to reduce greenhouse gasses. In the examples that I just cited, ICT forms a technology core. But there is an even bigger role that ICT plays in collaboration. It makes collaboration possible by breaking down physical borders – connects people, economies, organizations and governments in ways that were never thought possible. Collaboration, as we will soon see, is one of the biggest pillars of innovation in recent times.
We are here today to understand leading thought in the world, listen to top industry leaders, innovators, leading academics and debate, get in-depth insights enabling us to spot trends and see how they could give businesses competitive advantage, work collaboratively together to enhance your business– driving your growth and improving your productivity. In your growth we seek our growth.
How the world is transforming
While you will listen to six of our speed geeks in the afternoon, let me quickly focus your attention on two areas where the world is transforming. The world is acquiring the ability to measure, sense and see the exact condition of almost everything. Hundreds of satellites are generating data every day. Millions of terabytes of new information is generated every day. There are 3.3 billion mobiles, one for every two people. One out of every third person will be on the Web by 2011. 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are produced globally, embedded in products, passports, buildings – even animals. Nearly one-half of all sensors in transportation, facilities and production equipment are smart sensors. 68 billion credit card transactions were processed in 2009, up 35% from 2007. 1 trillion connected objects – comprising “the Internet of things”. There is computing everywhere. Computers disappear into objects. People, systems and objects can communicate and interact with each other in entirely new ways. Clouds will proliferate. Mobile connectivity and location awareness will be ubiquitous. Investment in new technology will be driven by strategic rationales and not only typical cost/ benefit.
In the not too distant past, innovation was shrouded in secrecy and the secrecy itself was used as a source of competitive advantage by labs, corporations, and nations. Historically, innovation was driven by central R&D teams, and co-located R&D labs were crucial in creating competitive advantage. Only the manufacturing tasks were outsourced to partners.
In last few years innovation is increasingly moving out of labs, across the globe through to business beyond R&D. In fact innovation in recent times is adopting a more collaborative approach, and looking to partners and customers for input on critical components.
Sources of innovation are spread across the globe. To innovate, organisations don’t need to control all the resources or build within their own frameworks. They need to partner and collaborate with a variety of partners. The partnerships could be in a wide number of ways, to create new technologies, products, and services.
Successful collaboration shortens development lead times, allows you to use your own resources to do more and also access skills and capabilities of your partners.
Together we can spark new possibilities for the future.
One of the best examples of an innovation ecosystem is Logica EMO. It brings entrepreneurs, government regulatory agencies, oil companies, transporters and fleet operators, and insurance companies together on to a collaborative platform that addresses the ever-menacing problem of air pollution and consumption of fossil fuels, benefiting all and the society at large. The solution includes the continuous monitoring of carbon footprints of vehicles in real-time, under actual driving conditions. This data is used to provide feedback to drivers on their driving patterns, and a mechanism to offer incentives to greener vehicles vis-à-vis the polluting ones.
At Logica we have set up Spark Centers as the fountainhead of innovation. Integrated in the same physical room is a series of showcases which demonstrate Logica’s vision and offers for current and future industry challenges. They create and demonstrate our technology, solutions and know-how in key industry sectors. They allow local and international clients, partners and universities to experiment with the technology, debate and shape solutions that provide growth and a collaborative framework. By bringing every one of our clients and partners on this innovation network, we can spark more possibilities of future.