Ingrain innovation in the DNA of a company

BANGALORE, INDIA:  To succeed in the competitive world, innovation has to be ingrained in the DNA of a company.  Companies need to continually innovate, drive excellence, value integrity and be positive influencers to become successful entities in the new global order.

This formed the core of speech of Pradeep Gupta, CMD, Cyber Media, at CIOL C Change 2008 event, here today.

“Innovation is key to growth. Innovation has to be the pillar and corner stone of company’s rudiments,” said Gupta

Charting the growth of Cyber Media as a leading specialty-publishing house in South Asia, Gupta said that the company had made a conscious decision to ingrain innovations in building blocks for the company.

“Right in 1982, when IT exports were less than 100 crore, Cyber Media came up with Dataquest, a magazine that focused on IT industry alone,” said Gupta.

“At that time, information technology industry itself was bereft of any information. Even the big media houses were not interested in it. We at Cyber Media saw the opportunity and today Dataquest is the leading IT magazine in the country,” said Gupta.

“Again in 1993, when nobody had heard of a mobile phone, and landline connection was a dream, we introduced Voice & Data, a magazine inclusively focused on telecom world,” added Gupta.

Gupta added that process of innovation was continuous and companies need to be nimble footed in their thought process to continually diversify into new market segments.

“The pressure on companies to diversify into new segments are as paramount as they were twenty five years ago,” he added.

“Internet becoming a major mass medium puts additional onus on us to become a cross-media company,” said Gupta adding the company has always been right in judging the market dynamics.

“Cyber Media Online Limited portal was launched in 1996, at a time when very few understood the medium of Internet in the country,” he said.

In his speech to top 100 CIO’s of India, Gupta said that the media houses publishing apart from being great innovators have added responsibility to be influencers of public opinion and value integrity.

“We voiced our opinion against piracy at a time when no one thought it would have long term negative ramifications on the Indian IT industry,” he said.

“We were always vociferous, that the aims and aspiration of IT, telecom industry be reflected in the IT and telecom policies of the country,” said Gupta.

On Cyber Media’s recent acquisitions, Gupta said Cyber Media would continue to acquire foreign companies, which would add value to the company.