René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

Keynotes belong to the big guys. Yesterday it was Azim Premji’s turn, the CEO and 80 % owner of Wipro which makes him the richest Indian in India (till one year back he used to be the richest Indian in general before London-based steel-baron Lakshmi Mittal took over). As he is renowned, extremely modest (“Wipro, a company which is doing reasonably well”) and soft-spoken he opened the day whose entire thread would spin about the word which seems to driver the Indian IT-industry in 2006: The “I-“Word.

In his amazing clarity and alertness which is the living evidence for his success, Mr. Premji let no doubt that a lack on innovative thinking is lethal for any company. As entrepreneurs do, he made a clear distinction about creativity as “thinking new things” towards innovation as “doing things differently by applying thought” which includes design, implementation, in the bottom line: action.

Innovation, that was a valuable point, extends by far beyond coming up with a great new cutting-edge disruptive ha-hoo product like Skype. Innovation can happen and contribute incrementally in the areas of delivery, process, business model, supply chain and something which gets underestimated: organizational structure. Innovation won’t come by itself; there is the urge to create a culture of innovation in an environment of trust and without fear.

Amazing again on Premji’s side, a gentleman who will turn 61 this year, is his relentless power to keep on moving. The biggest enemy of innovation is the tendency to believe that previous success will extend into future success. Also, the “constant complacency which tends to spread in the top- and mid-management” needs to be confronted to avoid the resulting gravity which will put a damaging drag on the organization. What I could realize at many stages of his speech is his great leadership by immediately coming up with tangible, actionable remedies in a very systematical, even methodological way. “What we actively do in our hiring, we select a defined percentage of people who are not clones of other people in the organization. People from outside who will provide the necessary diversity, talent which makes it slightly uncomfortable for the incumbents and basically do not fit into the current culture.” That is a hammer. “A defined percentage” which allows the system to stay well intact but at the same time constantly evolve.

Premji underscored the commitment to innovation which must be intrinsic from the top-management beyond just allocating financial resources, the supremacy of teams working together, a multi-faceted, cross-disciplinary approach and the ability to fight constructively if a new idea can really turn into an innovative asset. Wipro apparently has installed an innovation counsel which is structured pretty much as an internal VC fund.

Finally, Mr. Premji concluded that true innovation has to allow for failure. Quoting a Nobel Prize winner, he summed up with: “I try to fail as fast as I can to move on for the next idea.”