'Innovation is great solutions to life's complex issues'

KRABI, THAILAND: After taking up a real-life challenge, for instance, like Steve Jobs, if one can provide an ideal solution to it, be it as a product or service, that’s what ultimately matters more than anything else.

In the words of D.K. Venkatesh, vice-president, Innovation of SAP Labs India, it is the simplest explanation for innovation.

In order to reinforce his point, he picks the case of MP3 players, in pre-iTunes era, when companies were not getting due returns due to piracy and other copyright violations, as well as due to competition.

“He (Jobs) solved it by coming up with the iTunes, which gave a fantastic user experience with a song for just $1. On Day 1, it offered more than a million songs on its playlists. As in iPhone, next-generation kind of devices for real-life problems are innovation in the true sense,” he explains.

Innovation, Venkatesh points out, can’t be boxed. “If we can give a completely new experience with existing resources, it’s great!” In response to a query on whether he idolizes Jobs in his new capacity, he counters, with a question, “If you can do a better job of it (with what one has), then why not like Jobs?”

As far as the Indian market is concerned with regard to innovation, he articulates that it has its own constraints, has different circumstances and offers varied challenges. “So, you have to come up with all these flashy things. Soon, more and more multinational vendors will get into the game. I think about how I can better them in our solutions and services,” elucidates Venkatesh.

It has become more of a necessity than just for the sake of it to innovate in businesses in the present-day context. He concurs. But, “for any vendor, including SAP, innovation works best when launched at the right time.”

SAP’s mobility solutions, as with other ones, rest on the very premise, says Venkatesh. “We have one such solution, called Mobiliser under Sybase.”

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A moot question at this point is when the smartphone segment in India is less than 10 per cent of the entire mobile phone market, why do most of the vendors and app makers focus more on that rather than turning their attention to the basic phone segment? Is it because it offers a highly lucrative proposition to make quick bucks?

According to Venkatesh, affordability continues to be a major issue with smartphones, both in India and other parts of the world. Once prices come down, adoption will soon increase, he reckons. “We want to cater to the high-end smartphone segment and address the needs of basic phone users, as both will co-exist and get simultaneously sophisticated.”

SAP’s SMS-based solution for farmers to learn about prices of agricultural products in co-operative societies is a case in point. “For instance, Godrej Agrovet (a company engaged in agro-based and poultry-based products) runs SAP. If your real business perspective is about it, you have to go for it. Many of our customers do it (for basic phone users),” he affirms, even as he agrees that the worldwide reach of smartphone-oriented products and solutions increase its value proposition manifold.

In the Indian village called Soda in Rajasthan, SAP’s ERP solution on cloudis being used to administer the panchayat, which Venkatesh terms a ‘path-breaking’ work. He also cites the example of an SAP application powering a tree census on BlackBerry in Maharashtra last year. “It shows that even the public administration is interested in such applications. Since it is mobile-based, once you take pictures of all the trees, you can always monitor them from then on.”

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It’s not only state governments and local administration that are keen on its solutions, but among 4,950 customers of SAP, about 3,800 are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Venkatesh says the current generation entrepreneurs are trying to have some proof points and their thinking angle is why they can’t leverage the best out of technology. It’s promising for us, he beams.

Even as he says 80 per cent of the world runs SAP’s ERP applications, one can’t think but wonder that in the database space, where SAP too, aspires to become a big global player, Oracle still has a tight grip. His answer to it is: After SAP’s acquisition of Sybase in 2010, they are encouraging their then customers and prospective customers to use that for their database requirements.

“It is a question of strategy. Before our Sybase acquisition, many used both SAP and non-SAP solutions. We are currently ramping up our database solutions’ adoption. In due course, many of our customers saw the value proposition in using our solutions.”

As for their charity product for social welfare, ChariTra, Venkatesh says that it helps them reach out to the beneficiaries better, apart from their regular CSR initiatives. “Technology is capable of finding out what people need and what solutions can be offered to them. In fact, technology is just one half of it; there has to be a marketing machinery behind to really get to the deserving people,” he concludes.

(The writer was in Krabi, Thailand, on the invitation of SAP Labs India)