Discussion Summary

Connecting the Rights Dots to be an Innovative CIO

Building an Innovation Strategy for your Digital Enterprise—A CIO Playbook for Innovation Frameworks

Today, every organisation wants to be at the forefront of innovation. However, innovation remains anelusive aspiration for many, especially among the well-established organisations.

When it comes to CIOs, who are supposed to lead innovation in an organisation, the challenge takes apractical shape: They have visibility into all the processes, data and applications of their company, butthey are also bogged down with the task of 'keeping the lights on' in the organisation. Most of them donot have the bandwidth and the right capabilities to drive innovation in their organisations.

What then can CIOs do to drive innovation in their companies? Is there a strategic approach toinnovation, a playbook that they can refer to? To examine this challenging question in all its broaderaspects, CIO Academy Asia (CIOAA) in association with NTT Communications organised an Executive CIOWorkshop titled, “Building an Innovation Strategy for your Digital Enterprise—A CIO Playbook forInnovation Frameworks” on 22nd August in Singapore.

The workshop featured some very respected names in the area of strategic innovation: Prof. Arcot DesaiNarasimhalu, Adjunct Professor, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, SMU and Managing Innovator ofSimha Innovations; and Mr. Taku Morinobu Director of IoT Office, NTT Communications.

Discussion Summary

Navigating the Innovation Landscape

The workshop started with the chairman’s welcome address.In his address, P. Ramakrishna, Deputy CEO, CIO AcademyAsia, talked about the innovation landscape to put all on thesame page for the discussion. With the pace of technologychanging at hyper speed, innovation becomes difficult forwell-established companies, he argued. They are betterexecutors than innovators! However, companies must survivein this VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex andambiguous). Therefore, despite the challenges and limitations,CIOs have to drive innovation, take risk, encourage change inmindsets and continuously learn, he urged.

Connecting the Right Dots to Innovate

The first keynote was aptly titled, “Connecting the Right Dots – Maximising Innovation Value,” deliveredby Prof. Narasimhalu.

In the first part of his keynote, he talked about understanding innovation. Innovation is oftenmisunderstood. “Not everything that is creative can be considered innovative,” he said. “Having asolution to a problem is one aspect, it must also be affordable.”

When it comes to business innovations, technology only contributes 10% to innovation, he stated. Therest of the 90% is about business (Increased opportunities and increased expectation). “We have tonote that as tech evolves, it has to keep up with the times,” he said. This means that business andtechnology innovation have to constantly feed into each other.

Prof. Narasimhalu made a very remarkable point regarding being a good CIO and being an innovativeCIO: Good CIOs make no difference in a company’s long-term success. For example, between 1995 and2016, only 12% of the Fortune companies survived in that category. This was despite the fact that manycompanies had good CIOs.

Only those companies that allowed to build an innovativeculture have survived the list, he observed. “The mostimportant aspect of building an innovative culture isestablishing the right policies/programmes to promoteinnovation within the organisation,” he said. The otheraspects of building an innovative culture include changeawareness, empowered employees and committedleadership, among others.

There are many instances where the innovative product isnot the main driver of the revenues, it may come fromthe services offered surrounding the product, he said.

Discussion Summary

The second part of his keynote focused on the dots themselves: these are (in terms of innovation)company, markets, trends and the government.

“The business value of IT is derived from increasing revenues, reducing costs and having the right talentto deliver,” he said. “The innovation strategy models must be adapted for the DNA of the organisation,and it can’t be a ‘one size fit all’ strategy”.

Part 3 of his keynote was about Connecting the Dots: be unique and leading, with a technology strategythat is aligned to the company’s vision.

He shared the Innovative CIO Office as a framework which is a good reference model for anyorganisation hoping to embark on the innovation journey.

As he came to the end of his keynote, he concluded: “As we ‘align the right dots’ for innovation,different organisations will have various degrees of outcomes but the key is in execution! Those whoclearly understand, are fully committed to the cause coupled with the right timing of their execution,will have the most success!”

Driving innovation through IoT and Digital Transformation

The second keynote titled, “Driving innovation through IoT (Internet of Things) and DigitalTransformation” was delivered by Mr. Morinobu. He first introduced the NTT group, which is one of thelargest ICT companies, with $105 billion in revenues.

He discussed the direction of the company and its positioning as a business transformation partner toorganisations through three pillars: Transform to hybrid cloud, accelerate digital transformation, anddeliver disruptive innovations.

Emphasising adoption of IoT technology for driving innovation, he said that cost of all IoT componentshave been going down well in the past few years. This makes it easier for enterprises to introduce IoTsystem for their own business. However, integrating the components is the challenge on getting valueout of IoT. This is where the value of supporting API comes in, which can connect companies with NTT’ssecure, global and managed IoT Platform.

As examples, he highlighted many successful use cases where such IoT deployments have taken place. These include:

1. Smart lighting in Indonesia –Outdoor smart lighting to save energy and enhance safety

2. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for tracking individuals

3. Predicting future of plants (such as chemical plants) using AI

4. Keifuku Bus pilot—analysis of driver data and vehicle performance data to support safe fleet operation

Discussion Summary

Panel Discussion: Innovation is not a straight-line journey

This presentation by Mr. Morinobu was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Mr. P.Ramakrishna.

Speaking of innovation in the context of his industry, one of the panellists said that organisations needto ensure that the right information is going to the customers, and ensure that they are educated onthe value of the product (innovation).

Mr. Morinobu said that customers want faster and faster innovation. However, when we innovate, ourexpectations are very high. That, according to him, is not the right approach. “It is enough to try and fail(to innovate),” he said.

“Innovation is not a straight-line journey,” said Prof. Narasimhalu. “You have to take so manyapproaches until you find the right solution.”

According to Prof. Narasimhalu, it’s very important to be fast in the innovation cycle. His advice is to golean (lean entrepreneurship model), go to market quickly and test something whether it works or not.“If it does not work, come back and try something else,” he said.

The panellists also discussed the security aspect of innovation. Mr. Ramakrishna brought up a rathercontroversial topic by invoking the concept of ‘Security by design’.

The panellists agreed that security needs to be a part of the entire process, not just innovation. The aimof security is to understand risks and manage them. It was suggested that tech leaders and securitycompanies will have to design security into the software and applications themselves.

“I am very concerned about IoT, because IoT means that there are more points where you can beattacked,” said Prof. Narasimhalu. However, walking the talk is important, when it comes to innovationby businesses, he added.

The other ideas shared around innovation were to engage with business people in the organisationwhile innovating and to make sure that successful ‘Proof of concepts’ before you take the innovation tothe next level. The mantra of ‘fail fast, learn and try again’ should be inculcated as part of the culture.

Discussion Summary

Execution, timing, skills, data—All that matters in innovation

In the last segment of the workshop, the attendees were divided into 4 groups for roundtable discussions.The topics and the main conclusions of the discussions were as follows:

Innovate to survive and succeed.Prof. Arcot Desai Narasimhalu facilitated this group. The gist of the discussion was that execution, timing,and right skilling are important for innovation in an organisation. “Get the right people at the right time,and if you don’t have the right people in the company, hire them,” was the advice offered. Some models ofcollaboration with the academic institutions were also deemed important for innovation in organisations.

Leveraging IoT as a key component of your ‘innovation engine’.This discussion was facilitated by Taku Morinobu-san, NTTCom and Glen Francis, CIO Academy Asia. Theparticipants emphasised leveraging data for innovation for IoT implementation. However, they identifiedtwo main challenges in deploying IoT: there were far too many standards out there that do not help in thequick execution of IoT; and Cyber security was a stumbling block in adopting IoT.

As we innovate, cyber-resiliency must also be an organisation’s priority.Alvin Yeo, NTT Security and P. Ramakrishna, CIO Academy Asia facilitated this discussion. The participantstook the view that resilience falls into many areas when it comes to innovation related with technologysuch as availability, functionality, etc. Is it a priority? Absolutely, they agreed. They also found regulationsand legacy environments as their main challenges. Some salient points which were discussed as follows:1. Cyber Resiliency is broad and covers attributes such as system availability, performance, security and

functionality.2. How resilient an innovative system has to be depends on the solution it intends to address. It's a

balancing act.3. Successful commercial adoption of any technology based innovation depends on its resiliency.4. Key challenges:

• Regulator constraints. E.g., It took several years for MAS to allow the usage of cloud; thisinhibited the banking industry but the recent ‘API sandbox’ initiative by MAS to embrace theFintech industry is a positive step to embrace innovation.

• Risk of failure. Most organisations are limited by budget and P&L cycles, with very little roomfor failure or R&D. This risk of failure limits innovation.

• Resiliency depends not only on technology, but also support processes such as businesscontinuity and incident management.

Fostering a culture for innovation.Mr. Christopher Tan, CIO Academy Asia facilitated this discussion. The main points that all agreed uponfor fostering a culture of innovation were considered to be trust, a spirit of collaboration and rightindividuals at the right place. As necessity is the mother of invention, participants agreed that applyingthe right pressure at the business was crucial as innovation has to solve problems that a business wasfacing. Innovation culture and corporate culture are not separate; both are interrelated and should beseen as one. As far as ideas are concerned, all ideas are correct but it depends on the context for them tosucceed or be accepted. The organisation’s culture should help you in being open to challenges and alsobe open to be challenged. As far as benefits from innovations are concerned, it is not a one way street,organisations have to share the IP benefits with the employees to motivate them.

With the sharing of the summary of roundtable discussions, the workshop came to an end. In conclusion,innovation should not be an elusive aspiration for many, it can be achieved by setting the right cultureand adopting the right approach with appropriate frameworks and lessons learnt from other well-knownorganisations.

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More photos from the event can be found in CIO Academy Asia Fabcebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/cioacademyasia/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1624627650923337