Next Level Innovation Blog

Innovation in daily life: fooling the ATM Machine

Movie not working? Use this link: The Perfect ATM Crime

From: Business Innovation Insider

The future enterprise: What are the drivers?

The recently published Global Innovation Outlook and the IBM Global CEO Study both uncovered two profound trends in the enterprise world.

On one end enterprises are quickly evolving into borderless institutions, held together by a common set of interests and goals, the endeavor, where the traditional organization is relegated to the role of orchestrating and facilitating the coordination of the resources.

On the other end organizations become more specialized by focusing not only in what is "core" for them, but most importantly by becoming increasingly more componetized and aggregated in a network of specialized entities, each of which is able to focus on its differentiating capabilities.

Both trends obviously pose challenges: How will companies be able to motivate "their" employees while their role fades into a mere coordination? How will employees handle a decreased job security? How will organizations be able to keep their true point of differentiation, as they increasingly "peel" themselves into more lean, specialized organizations?

But at the same time they pose very interesting opportunities: on one hand for employees, which will be more empowered to move across organizations. On the other for companies, which will become more agile and increase their ability to rapidly respond to market changes.

The question for you all is.. can you think of more trends which will shape the future enterprise?
What is happening today which will determine how our company will work in the future?
I would like to ask you to brainstorm with me to find out how the "future enterprise" will be.. are you up for the challenge?

The word is to you, bloggers!

More photo's - Next Level event

       

More photo's were just added to the Next Level photoalbum. Containing the Belgian sessions Innovation in Health (Halloy, see above left) and Innovation in Government (Brussels, see above right).

Innovations in Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility has changed over the years: the "social team events" (in which teams joined hands for a day or so to support a good course) were sometimes extended to partnerships or alliances  between corporations and NGO's. The  partners committed to collaborate for some time on a defined project which matches the core business and supports the desired organisation profile.

I expect that future partnerships will focus even more on mutual  benefits for  both partners thus transforming the donor - recipient relationship to a win win transaction between equal partners.  Explicitly stating mutual  expectations, milestones and results demonstrates the value add for the parties involved and provides a base for sustainable relations

Interested in your views

The purpose of this blog has been twofold, one has been to blog on the events taking place during the Next Level Innovation week, the other has been to create an open discussion on innovation. As the event has finished, one purpose remains, so lets concentrate on the discussion. :-)

There are a couple of questions that were posed here, that I would be interested to know your views/ideas on.

They are:

• How do I ensure that good ideas make it through and are not killed of by the system?
• Are teams really innovating, or is it mainly one brilliant person that makes it work?
  
• Do you still believe your R&D department is your main source of Innovation ?
• Is innovation impossible without "good" communication between people in  different fields?
• Is innovation counter intuitive?
• Is IT becoming a commodity?

So, what do you think?

Next Level, IBM Innovation week is finished

But, innovation never stops!

I definitely had a great time this week! The Next Level event sessions took place in four different locations: Halloy, Brussels, Eindhoven and Amsterdam (I was in Eindhoven the whole week myself).

Innovation was specifically discussed on the topics retail, finance, government, marketing and healthcare. But as I hear many times this week, innovation is about collaboration, so it has a much broader perspective than that.

We did some live blogging (a first time experience for me) during the Marketing, Health, Public and Finance sessions.

The discussion in innovation will continu on this blog, even though the Next Level event is finished. It was a great driver to get the discussion on innovation started, so I'm definitely convinced this kind of open discussion should go on, in this way or another... Because innovation is an ongoing thing.

'Innovation in Finance' session II

Live blog report - Customer perspectives on Innovation

I've just attended the session 'Customer perspectives on innovation'. Two business cases were presented: Mr. de Jager (working for Rabobank Netherlands) talking about the future of banking.

He kicks off by saying to us: "In some years, we won't be using money in it's physical form anymore."

Mr. Jager tells us a bit about the numbers of Rabobank. In 1981 there were 700 local and 2400 branch offices. In 2007 there will be 150 local and 1400 branch offices left. I250 million people visited bank offices in 1980, now that's down ot only 4 million.

In the Netherlands 6,2 million people do their banking on the internet. 100.000 people older than 50 years are active on the Rabobank web environment. "People want to be in control over their own accounting and want to be able to do their banking at any time they want", Jager says. "A new generation is evolving that doesn't even know where bank offices are".

It seems like Rabobank is going to evolve more and more to an internet and new media focussed bank. "It's very difficult to be a personal bank, when you don't have physical contact with the client anymore", De Jager tells us. "We're using CRM systems to make the personal approach possible, so the customer will feel like Rabobank knows them."

The most difficult De Jager finds about innovation in banking, is that people in banking still look with the 'old' paradigms to the new devolpments. They know the world is going to change, but it's difficult to start acting that way. "We're moving from the traditional bank-centered perspective to a customer-centered one."

Some interesting innovation examples Jager mentioned Rabobank is working on: mobile banking, iDeal, Minitix.

Interesting discussion on making sure ideas come through..

Interesting discussion in the Innovation Management & Applying innovation session, part of the Innovation in Finance day, hosted by Clive Harris. After Clive explained the theory of applying innovation, there were some burning questions from the audience. "But how do I involve my people, How do I ensure that good ideas are not killed of by the system?"

An interesting discussion followed. Clive gives an example of how IBM approaches this by using a virtual meeting ground where people can add and build on each others ideas. Catalysts are appointed to ensure ideas are turned into solid cases. Executives are responsible for the implementation.

It is a good question though; what can you do to ensure the right ideas get through?  Let me know your ideas!

Innovation in Financial Services

Live blog report - Driving Organic growth through innovation

Peter J. Korsten (Leader IBM Institute for Business Value) and Cormac Petit (Consultant IBM Institute for Business Value) explain to us why innovation in the financial services is essential. Interestingly Peter makes the statement that the Financial sector is not very innovative at the moment. He promises to explain why in the end. :-)

Peter gives an introduction of the IBV, (an IBM think tank) in which consultants conduct worldwide studies to gain insight. He explains that a lot of knowledge shared today, come from the CEO study.

Cormac Petit explains why the time for innovation in banking is now. He expains that the market at the moment is sceptical; it is unsure that past successes will be repeated and continious consolidation is taking place. He gives us two reasons; one because new and unexpected competitors are coming into the market. Two; customers are demanding a higher service and personal customer value. This means traditional banks need to rethink their strategies.

Peter goes through some myths of innovation, concluded from the CEO study. The myths: Innovation is about products, it something secret and needs to be done internally. Final myth: It is also something that can be delegated within the company. He uses hilarious videos to illustrate his points! For instance he shows us two innovative ways he found online for solving the problem of folding t-shirts extremely fast. Talk about an original way to illustrate that you should use all the information that is out there!

He comes back to explain his first statement. He shows us the Business Week Top 100 Innovative companies and explains that only one of the companies in the top 100 was a bank. And finally Cormac surprises us with the fact that we were the first audience worldwide to hear the results of the IBV Financial study. It will be published worldwide in October.

Innovation in Finance - at this moment

I'm currently at the first presentation-series of the 'Innovation in Finance' session. Peter Korsten was talking just now - you see him on the picture here - had a very interesting plea about innovation in financial services. The actual story is being blogged live by my colleague at this moment (so soon to follow).