Idea Submission started in mid-March with a group of hopeful Softekkians discussing ideas in enterprise technology - ideas that expanded beyond Softtek to make a meaningful impact to the world at large. All too eager associates brought forward seeds of ideas and wondered how to plant trees. During the past ten weeks of Softtek Innoventures, we took the seeds and planted some trees.
The question that looms in everyone’s mind, and it ought to be: do we have the right environment to grow a garden? The truth is that we cannot be sure. We cannot be sure just yet. Each time we present the idea of Innoventures to a new pair of eyes, it’s with the same skepticism that the concept is received. It seems that Innoventures is all too exciting on paper, but may be impossible to execute in reality. Perhaps, but we don’t agree.
Corporate innovation has a different set of rules. Softtek has survived for decades on the unique ability to provide high-value IT services. To change the landscape cannot be the outcome of a one-cycle-of-Innoventures. It’s a drawn out process, spanning several years, to transform the company to adopting, marketing, and selling new technologies. We get that. The only credible thing for us to do is set up the right processes, checks and balances, and systems to enable a path for new ideas to flow to market.
As Innoventures, our only true deliverable is to remain agile and develop capabilities to merge our solutions across the Softtek landscape, offering lateral translations of our solutions across the organization.
The immediate challenge is perhaps sales. For a company to move from services to products/solutions has been a challenge for IT-consulting companies across the map. Several companies in the IT-services map come to mind that have been striving to create a brand of products and identities in the past several years. Following several setbacks, some of these company decided to re-focus entirely on it’s bread-and-butter: IT services. We go back to the question of why we think that we will be successful.
Here is how we aim to be different: 1: Innoventures is completely weaved into the corporate structure. We work directly with teams across the organization with the hope to deliver solutions with wide impact. 2: One of our closest allies is the sales team. Sales leaders have invested in the Innoventures system and are able to influence both the existing team or the creation of a new team. 3: Innoventures generates ideas that meet immediate Softtek needs and opportunities. After a series of internal meetings, Innoventures innovates in key areas of focus that are aligned with Softtek’s overarching strategies. 4: Lastly, top management gives Innoventures its complete backing, making it easier for innovation to prosper in a seemingly guarded yet empowering environment.
We know that our methods cannot be absolute. There will be hurdles, learning, and experimentation. Ultimately, there is a strong belief that given our levels of commitment and determination to the success of innovation, there will be a functioning path to create a steady sequence of taking new ideas to market.
