On February 5, 2010, nine Berkeley Haas MBAs visited the SAP Labs in Palo Alto during a company visit organized by the European Business Club EBC and co-sponsored by the Haas Tech Club (HTC). The participants received detailed insights on how SAP thinks about innovation and trends. Host of the visit was Jaideep Tungare (EWMBA 2010) who introduced the participants to four high profile speakers and - over lunch - to several Berkeley Haas Alumni.
Initially, Dr. Paul Hofmann (VP Research at the SAP Research Americas and China) gave an overview of relevant trends that trigger innovation in SAP's periphery. The increasing amount of data, the different lifecycles of business software and Web applications, the trend towards context sensitive systems, and the opportunity to combine 'smart' technologies (e.g., RFID) with social networks are challenges and opportunities, best tackled by a powerful innovation engine. SAP approaches this challenge with the SAP Labs in Palo Alto, Bangalore, Walldorf, and Tokyo, building on SAP's core competencies and simultaneously leveraging competencies from partners, and clients. Hereby, the SAP Labs build on community initiatives such as the 500.000-strong SAP Developer Network, where technical experts collaborate or the Business Process Expert Community, where business analysts, application consultants, and process developers work together. Beyond that, SAP Labs collaborate with a number of academic institutions and other companies (including some competitors) to drive innovation.
As an example for the latest developments from the SAP Labs, Laurent Bride (VP of Innovation of SAP Americas) introduced the participants to a new way of visualizing relationships within a company. The Social Network Analyzer aggregates existing enterprise data to display and discover organizational relationships. It automatically generates useful social networks that can be used to increase transparency, foster collaboration, and enhance communication and networking. Going forward it could be possible to connect the Analyzer not only across company boundaries but also with external social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn. Amazing new ways to visualize and leverage relationships with all possible stakeholders of a firm (e.g. suppliers, customers) can be envisioned from this new tool. A demo of Social Network Analyzer is accessible online.
In the following, Michael Flynn (Director Co-innovation Lab Palo Alto Global Ecosystem and Partner Group SAP Labs) explained, how "COIL" (Co-Innvoation Lab) within the SAP Labs facilitates project based co-innovation between two or more companies by extending the capabilities of its contributing partners, and enabling showcases and joint marketing efforts. COIL becomes a venue for the sharing of interests, ideas, and technologies. The collaboration during projects is driven by the flexible setup of the COIL in itself. Its Palo Alto location is physically easy adjustable to different team sizes and needs, features the latest IT infrastructure, and offers through the three other locations a 24/7 coverage around the world.
While the length and size of the project depend on the respective setup, the two main challenges for each collaboration project are widely the same: How to handle newly developed intellectual property? And: how to keep the joint effort on track? SAP has successfully created physical space and a platform to enable collaboration and found ways to overcome the described challenges by creating COIL. Firstly, a jointly agreed IP-framework needs to be implemented which addresses the first issue and becomes part of the collaboration. To tackle the second challenge, the role of a "knowledge broker" is established who ensures knowledge exchange, and overviews the team processes. The success of SAP's approach to innovation via co-innovation has been proven in the approximately 30 projects with various partners that have been accomplished in 2009.
Finally David Cruickshank (Director Co-innovation Lab Palo Alto Global Ecosystem and Partner Group SAP Labs) introduced the participants to the success factors of co-innovation: 1) Start with customer needs: the most powerful pull for innovation are existing customer needs. 2) Develop a joint target: both innovation partners need to be clear on the outcome of the co-innovation. 3) Manage expectations: agree on resource commitments, time frames, and deliverables. 4) Co-locate the teams: to kick-off the co-innovation in a joint team room proved as critical to success.
At the end of the visit the MBA students had the chance to discuss the new learning's with the speakers and four Berkeley Haas MBA alumni over lunch.
The company visit to SAP Labs was another successful trip to European companies in the Bay Area organized by the European Business Club EBC. Going forward, the collaboration between the EBC and Haas Tech Club HTC will be intensified to offer a broad range of company visits to current Berkeley Haas MBA students.