The objective & key energy behind this blog is to give message to middle sized enterprises to change their mindset towards innovation, research & development. Many companies has a tendency to drift towards the defensive strategy of cost cutting & employee lay off (Which is certainly unavoidable) during tough times. Most of the companies are interested in a "SURVIVAL" mode rather than aspiring to be a reasonable "SHINING STAR".
My recommendation is that every organization should have an innovation department. For SME's there should be atleast person with a designation Manager - Innovation. You do not need to be a technology specialist or gizmo craze to innovate. As a part of their daily routine, every body can innovate in their own job.
Rather than going with lot of stories available on innovation, I thought I will share one of my real time experience: I used to work for a company which supplies consutling services, softwares & engineering solutions to different customers located globally (My self is an engineer, a techie turned a sales proffessional). I got into this organization as a sales professional (my first job as a sales person) after about six months of my technical experience(I’m one of those engineers who got an early message in my career that I’m more flavoured towards sales & marketing than being a technology specialist). The business development team was divided into different business groups. I used to belong to a specific industry vertical called “COMPONENT ENGINEERING”. We had to make lot of calls to customers for prospecting purpose. After several days of calling procedure, I eventually understood that I could do it better (I decided to innovate).
Most of the executives complained that the secretaries do not transfer the call to the relevant personnel (Most of the times we will not have the direct number and we need to go through the receptionist) due to continues sales call they receive from different places. They were very smart in filtering the call as per instructions from the senior management. I together with some of my friends found an ideal way to tackle this.
If the phone number of the company is 234-456-7650 & if you dial the same number, it will either go to a receptionist or to the switch board. As the secretaries are smarter enough, you may end up not reaching the right person.
What we did was the following:
We dialed 234-456-7651,234-456-7652, 234-456-7653…….untill it is been picked up by some one at 234-456-7659. From the other side…Hello, Mary here from Quality
Hi Mary, Niju here from XYZ, looking for Mark Plaphey, the product development head.
Hi Niju…you called 456-7659, & Mark is at 465-7661, do you want me to transfer the call to him?
Thanks Mary, please if you can, Nice talking to you !!!
Welcome. I’ll do it for you.
Yes we did it !!!! Only thing is that you need to have some patience, and you will definitely speak to the right person even if you do not have his direct number.
This is only a very small example. My message again to you: You do not need to be a technology specialist or gizmo craze to innovate. As a part of their daily routine, every body can innovate in their own job which can make your job simple & easy.
