Learn from the Big Apple !

The Big Apple, ( one that produces IPhone, Ipad, Ipod and I am not referring just the ordinary fruits perse ) has been in recent years move to being one of the best company having achieved a truly successfull innovative story, and it took only just less than a year for the Apple team to innovate from start to finish the Ipod which back then almost kill the CD industry, not instantly but almost!

Clearly, there are some lessons for innovators, maybe not just innovators but people like us in the offshore rig building industry to take a refreshing look again and where we need to re-learn our existing engineering, production & construction processes with some innovative ideas perhaps and where we could still could maintain the league in the offshore industry. We all are fully aware there are others also capable in their effort to produce rigs of demand and it will not be just the world class builder leading alone in such race for the many available offshore contracts. We need to start looking up and rebuild our strength :

Learn from past mistakes and eat the humble pie

Apple was most decidedly not thinking about portable music as the 20th century drew to a close. In the age of mp3 and peer-to-peer sharing of music, Apple was focused on video and developing iTV and iMovie - so much so, that their then current version of the iMac didn't have a CD-burner.

In fact, if they are honest, they mistook the market for music completely. The world's most innovative company was literally blind to one of the biggest social trends that was occurring at the time!

To their credit, however, and with the aid of distressing financial figures resulting from such a misreading of the market, Apple realised that it had to change its approach to the market and to the technology. Given Apple's widespread reputation for innovation and trendiness, its failure to anticipate the importance of music in the lives of personal computer users was completely uncharacteristic.

Occasioned by a US$195 million quarterly loss, however, Apple took motivation from their mistake and realised that they needed to completely rethink the way they went to market. Apple not only learned from their mistake, they used it to catapult a new innovation.

Hire those with experience and skill

So, if you're Apple, how do you recover? The common advice from most management books on building teams has typically been to: 'hire for attitude, train for skills'. This model better ensures harmonious work environments and friendly collaborations. Yet, in the world of innovation, aspirations and attitude aren't enough. In the situation that it found itself in, Apple needed real skills, and so when Steve Jobs compiled the iPod team he loaded the odds in his favour by going with his very best people in hardware, software, and design. A team was assembled because they were the best.

And putting the best skilled on a mission to change the world, drove competition within them, leading the team to perform at peak levels - nobody on that team wanted to be 'second-best'!  

Find great and workable ideas

What really sets the iPod apart from all of the other mp3 players, however, is neither the hardware, the software, nor the design - although all are world-class. The iPod's real differentiator is the ease with which the customer can access, download, store and upload the music and podcasts.

No one else can do this, and this 'innovation' did not come from within Apple, but from an outsider - Tony Fadell - who was trying to do this on his own. Apple found him - think about how difficult that is, to find someone with a good idea outside of your firm - and hired him on an eight-week contract! This was not about building a long-term employment relationship, nor about loyalty, but about accessing someone else's good idea.

Create and encourage "think" lessons

Once the team was pulled together, Steve Jobs put them into a common physical space that although not consistent with their hierarchical position, raised the probability of their having effective and fast conversations. The design team's working quarters have been described as having 'very little personal space' - there were no cubicles or offices.

By imposing open environments, the creativity and free-flow of ideas were nourished. In the flow of ideas, space matters!

Define leaderships

When you talk about Apple, you can never avoid mentioning Steve Jobs. To do so would be to underestimate his importance to the attitude of the company, and ultimately the brand.

So what role did he play in the iPod? After developing a top-notch team, Jobs gave them ambitious and clear visions. He charged the team with creating a product that would put 1,000 songs in their pocket; software so easy that their mothers could use it; and a complete product offering that would be in retail outlets in eight months.

What is so exquisite about these objectives is that they are simple, clear and precise, yet broad enough so that the team could get to work without feeling constrained by the way the vision was presented - the team could be totally focused and liberated at the same time! Innovative leaders must provide a clear briefing that organises a team but which, at the same time, doesn't restrict their talent capabilities.

Even with a reputation for getting involved in projects, Jobs actually didn't interfere all that much with the iPod project. He was both smart enough to compose a highly skilled team and then to let their skills shine. Yet, along the way, Jobs acted as both a policeman and cheerleader for the project.

He imposed an attitude that let the team members know that Apple's win would also be their personally. And, by cheerleading, he was also able to police the parameters of the project, ensuring the team stuck to his briefing goals.

Stand firm

Another Apple product, the iPhone, is now redefining the mobile phone. Yet, this innovation recently posed a threat to Apple when a technical glitch created reception problems for users. Job's response was to display true leadership by giving a message that matched what the Apple culture really is - an engineering company that has repeatedly changed the world for the better.

His message to the public was: 'We'll fix the small iPhone problem,' and to his competitors, 'catch us if you can!'   I think we as offshore rig designer and builder, probably will have to do more than Apple does and we surely have lots of technical issues to look at and we could finish sorting out, other competitors will be slowly catching up with us in no lesser time.

Back to basic ..... "less is good"

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The idea that “less is more” has many adherents in architecture, design and fashion, the technology industry has historically espoused the opposite view. Products should have as many features as possible; and next year’s version should have even more. As prices fall, what starts off as a fancy new feature quickly becomes commonplace—try buying a phone without a camera, a car without electric windows, an SLR without autofocus, auto detect, etc, — product design companies everyday are in the move to add new and more features in an effort to outdo their rivals. Never mind if most of these new features are excess and not being applied or used by consumers. In the product design race and to capture more consumers to the ideas or features, more is always good to have nevermind if need to have.

Are there signs that technologists are waking up to the benefits of minimalism. Consumers are more and more into looking for things to just work, and strong demand from less affluent consumers in the developing world not wanting complicated features and paying more for not using them. It is telling that the market value of Apple, the company most closely associated with simple, elegant high-tech products, recently overtook that of Microsoft, the company with the most notorious case of new-featuritis. True, Apple’s products contain lots of features under the hood, but Steve Jobs has contain with a knack its techno for concealing such complexity using elegant design. Other companies have also prospered by providing easy-to-use products: think of the Nintendo Wii video-games console or the Flip video camera. Gadgets are no longer just for geeks, and if technology is to appeal to a broad audience, simplicity trumps fancy specifications.

Another strand of techno-austerity can be found in software that keeps things simple in order to reduce distractions and ensure that computer-users remain focused and productive. Many word software now have special full-screen modes, so that all unnecessary and distracting menus, palettes and so on are disabled or hidden; rather than fiddling with font sizes or checking e-mail, you are encouraged to get on with your writing. If the temptation to have a quick look at Facebook proves too much, there are programs that will disable access to particular websites at specified times of day; and if that is not draconian enough, there are even some programs that can block internet access altogether. A computer on which some features are not present, or have been deliberately disabled, may in fact be more useful if you are trying to get things done as likely you will feel that the processing speed now works faster than before. There are no distracting hyperlinks on a typewriter.

Frugality is the essence of invention ?

The coming of “frugal” innovation—the new ideas that emerge when trying to reduce the cost of something in order to make it affordable to consumers in places like China, India and Brazil. The resulting products often turn out to have huge appeal in the rich world too, especially in the present era of belt-tightening when all of us in this continent are facing up to the economic crisis. The netbook, or low-cost laptop, was inspired by a scheme to produce cheap laptops for children in poor countries, but has since proved popular with consumers around the world. Tata devised the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, with India’s emerging middle classes in mind; it is now planning to launch it in Europe, too, where there is growing demand for cheap, simple vehicles. Of course, there are pros and cons to such cheap vehicle, safety is one big concern to the users.

All this may offers grounds for hope. If the feature-obsessed technology industry can change its tune, perhaps there is a chance that governments—which have also tended to be inveterate believers in the idea that more is more—might also come to appreciate the merits of minimalism. 

What about today's rig building business, where some rig owners always looking for more drilling features into their rigs and do not mind paying for these extras??   Are they getting their returns higher and faster than those rig operators with basic functional rigs which are also capable of "drilling" the wells with though lower dayrates as compared. Probably these expensive or rich rig owners should start to look at simplicity and the risk of running into well accidents may also be beneficial in the sense "less is safer" !

Innovation - Key to survival of an Organization

Innovation in an organization can succeed and even thrive in an efficiently run company.

Being aware of and addressing the different external / internal environments, competition, support, skills, and drivers allow an organization to be on top compare to the others lacking the foresight. The challenge is to understand the differences, and create a system that is working against odds. Innovations challenge the norms and assumptions by thinking out- of-the-box and creating new ideas with risks. They can affect current resources, disrupt supply chains, manufacturing processes, product strategies, and even be unsettling for existing customers. Innovations can also affect structures within the company, creating a startling bump in an otherwise orderly progression in an already established and focused business. We always wonder why innovation is so difficult to initiate and maintain especially within a matured organization. The more so we have reasons to effectively manage innovation and it may be one of the best ways of differentiating a company with its strong competitors.

We may approach and manage innovation in an established organization - firstly is to protect opportunities by isolation as the innovations are identified and developed. Secondly is to integrate innovation practices and management systems to become an everyday part of the organization.

Isolating is an attractive approach since it is relatively straightforward and could include establishing separate new business ventures and isolating new opportunities. Isolating a new opportunity has the advantage of freeing the innovative enterprise from the controls of the established organization. While this approach works in some situations, it has several difficulties, including managing conflicting business models (the innovation could likely become a competitor to other operations in the company), the fact that the innovation often needs resources controlled by the established organization.

Splitting innovations from the established organisation certainly makes sense in some situations, such as those that can create an entirely new business. In most cases though, innovations would do better if they could co-exist with established businesses.

Innovations come in all sizes, and an integrated approach allows an organisation to adjust the balance in the approach between ordinary operations and systems designed for those ideas that are highly innovative.

Integrating innovation with normal business operations is done by combining top-down innovation leadership and bottom-up creation and drive of new opportunities and solutions.

Top-down innovation -

The management role in these businesses is to envision a potential new area, increase R&D, or to consolidate otherwise disparate activities within a company in a way that would be very difficult to do otherwise. Possible success initiatives could be those where the management is dependent on often newly established bottom-up ideas to further develop them into new businesses.

Bottom-up innovation -

Bottom-up innovation drives everything from day-to-day improvements to multi billion dollar new-to-the-world products and platforms.

Management systems are designed to allow bottom-up entrepreneurialism co-existing with normal businesses. These management systems recognize the unique needs for internal entrepreneurial activities. They may be :-

Allocation of some time: Spending 5-10% time with employees to work on programmes that they believe are important to the company. The time can either be to work on a programme or innovative quality circle that they initiate, or to support other's activities. Managers are expected to support employees' use of this time, and the employee can stay with the programme as the champion or team member.

Funding: Peer group allocated, self-managed funds to support feasibility work.

Design Forum: A networking program fostering peer to peer exchange and interaction, or could be strategic alliance or brainstorming amongst SBUs.

Use of company capabilities: The company's process and material capabilities are managed by groups that can provide access. Technologies are owned by the company, not by any one group.

Access to the company's markets: While the focus for an employee is to their direct business, they are encouraged through their allocated time to apply ideas anywhere where they think there may be an application. The reward system is designed to recognise both contributions to their business, as well as creating new businesses elsewhere in the company.

There are potential and the innovation determines the degree of one system or the other used. Small, sustaining innovations can be usually assessed and incorporated through normal processes. Moderate innovations often challenge assumptions, and by giving a champion of the idea resources, access, and support, they can lead testing those assumptions.

Large innovations, especially those involving new technologies and opening new markets for the company need the full support of senior management or the board or committee. The champion needs resources, access, and support to protect the innovation. Senior management gives enough independence to the new innovative group to make the right decisions, while at the same time encouraging collaboration and interdependence between the new and established groups.

Integrating innovation opens the organization to improve their style of working with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers in new ways. With this, it could possibly lead to many new opportunities and the experience staff in the organization with the vast experience will eventually drive to grow it’s company to a higher standard and compete in the global arena with stronger product and service.