Innovation arises from Problems or is it a necessity?

Innovation often is seen as a value-added curve introduced when the existing product or service value sees reduction in value or benefit. This is often termed as multiple 'S Curves'. In high technology organizations, you have various S curves very regularly keeping in mind innovation stemming out of competition.

Unfortunately, though innovation must arise from necessities, innovation often is a birth child of slowing growth and 'problems'. Why?

Most often, innovation is only thought of when your financial statements or your production numbers show a declining trend/slowing graph. Yes, innovation and thinking out of the box is required at this stage but will it really push up your graph overnight? It seldom does. Innovation is required at every stage of business decline and this can be even as frequent as a single week. 

Daily and weekly innovations are a must for every changing business organizations playing in a ever-changing economy or industry. A strike or an economic announcement, hiring freeze among, others can for example affect organizations within the Hiring and Recruitment industry. It is often seen that unless we innovate and develop these innovations quickly, results are seldom seen. 

The global hiring scenario has been choppy since 2008 and the scene in India is not that better.  
I would like to bring in few excerpts from the ILO's Global Employment Trends in 2012 - Preventing a deeper jobs crisis Release in this interim and revert back to our discussions on innovation:

"The International Labour Organization (ILO), India accounts for 74 per cent of of the South Asian region's labour force and the unemployment rates is expected to dramatically arise from 3.8 percent to 7.4 per cent. Though the growth rate in India has driven to a large 7.8 per cent, this has been associated with increased labour productivity and not due to larger employment opportunities. 

Further excerpts from the ILO, Global Employment Trends in 2012 - Preventing a deeper jobs crisis Release:

Between 2007 and 2011, labour productivity increased by 6.4 per cent on average, while employment expanded by just 1.0 per cent. This situation is prominent in India, where total employment grew by only 0.1 per cent over the five years to 2009/10 (from 457.9 million in 2004/05 to 458.4 million in 2009/10), while labour productivity grew by more than 34 per cent in total over this period (Chowdhury, 2011).

Innovation in the recruitment industry is the need of the hour. Organizations must innovate internally vis-a-vis understanding the customer as well and provide inputs and discuss with the latter on realities on the ground. Example: If the hiring trend shows that a premium pay rise of 10% for a specific skills, bring this up. Innovation here is clear that specific targeted Search is adopted to identify high skilled candidates. 

MapleCode adopts regular 'S-Curves' throughout the year. This enables the team and the organization to be a step ahead of its peers. Communicating innovation regularly also has helped MapleCode create a value space with its customers. 



About MapleCode
MapleCode is a specialized Executive and Technology Search Business established in the year 2009. MapleCode is presently based in Bangalore, India and delivers specialized Search consulting services across India, Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas. 

About the Author
Prashanth Vaidyan is a Senior Partner with the Technology Search Practice at MapleCode. He has been with the organization since inception and manages the Technology Mid Management Search assignments. Prashanth can be reach via prashanth.vaidyan@maplecode.com 

The author has referenced necessary examples from an external source to use as examples. This is duly credited herewith. Other contents are his own and as explained. 

Managing Change - Is it every easy?

Everyone agrees that Managing Change is tough. 

Even more so, once the change is done, implementing it to success is more challenging considering various forces at work. You have your internal structure, internal workforce, external partners and more importantly your customers old and new. Here, your loyal or existing customers and of course your internal structure, internal workforce, external partners too pay for the brunt of what you change!

Constant changes may awake a sense of uncertainty. Why? The reason is simple. From an organization's game changer's (or Leadership's) view point, constant change is important to adapt to the vagaries of the business environment. But, are you adeptly equipped to understand the impact of this so-called change - mostly no. 

And why? Here, I would like to quote, an article written by Jayme Alexandre de Lima for the Harvard Business Publishing Newsletters, published in January 19, 2009. He was categorical in saying that "70% of organizational transformations fail. Rarely is the cause a flawed strategy or lack of commitment by leaders (sic). Usually, says Jayme de Lima, failure occurs because the organization never wins its employees' commitment (sic)". Let us only consider this portion here - Rarely is the cause a flawed strategy or lack of commitment by leaders. 

Surely, every change is viewed as an improvement to an organization's growth or peak in this revenue or general business. But, does it involve all the parties mentioned above - your internal structure, internal workforce, your employees (quoting Jayme Alexandre de Lima), your external partners or your customers - maybe not. 

So, what is to be done? Here, I would like to highlight few areas that could be used in addition to other changes that an organization would like to implement:

1. Communicate the Change - Let the people know what you plan to do or implement. If your internal structure and your employees know what you intent, they will work understanding this intent. If the communication is myopic, it is seldom understood and any effort by a committed leadership will not yield results expected by the Change. If they have concerns, hear them out

2. External Audience - Your external audiences must know what you intent to do or change. They can add useful inputs or help re-align your change thoughts to these business models

3. Why the change - Understand also that, if you really need a radical change or is this change due to immediate past month or quarter performances. It is more possible that a change is not at all required. Form a group within - ask the workforce for reasons for issues internally before launching a change

4. Set a time - If convinced, set a time to implement the change. A change cannot go for ever. A usual formula can be 14 days. If the change cannot be implemented and also act as a success in 14 days, leave it

5. Measure Results - Create a measurable results model. What was expected from the change, has the change worked or added a spoke to the old model or do you want to give more time....assess each to see the change result. 

About MapleCode
MapleCode is a specialized Executive and Technology Search Business established in the year 2009. MapleCode is presently based in Bangalore, India and delivers specialized Search consulting services across India, Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas. 

About the Author
Prashanth Vaidyan is a Senior Partner with the Technology Search Practice at MapleCode. He has been with the organization since inception and manages the Technology Mid Management Search assignments. Prashanth can be reach via prashanth.vaidyan@maplecode.com 

The author has referenced necessary examples from an external source to use as examples. This is duly credited herewith. Other contents are his own and as explained. 

Weblink - http://hbr.org/product/managing-change-winning-hearts-and-minds/an/B0901D-PDF-ENG?Ntt=change+management

BALANCED SCORECARD REPORT ARTICLEManaging Change: Winning Hearts and Minds
Source: Harvard Business Publishing Newsletters 
3 pages.  Publication date: Jan 16, 2009. Prod. #: B0901D-PDF-ENG

by Jayme Alexandre de Lima 

MapleCode Today

MapleCode completed 3 successful years in early July 2012. As we enter our fourth year, we look back at our successes and models used to implement various strategies that we thought of and focused on. 

Starting off from a traditional single delivery system, we moved to an organized system focusing on three main delivery models, namely, the Executive Search Practice; the International Search Practice and the Technology Practice. What we have done here, is to have differentiated focus for each of our customers and give a customer oriented approach as and when they demand or simply ask. Hence, deliver what is asked immediately within a time frame rather than just pipeline projects over time. The writer will go back to more of explaining how the practice model works through a different blog.

On the other hand, it was important to have a specific and clear direction for our workforce to understand such changes considering the fluidity of the recruitment industry alongside the 'new agility' developed by our customers mainly in the Information Technology industry. Teams had to now move away from a simple customer satisfaction model to a Customer-Partner model and, clearly understanding what the customer wants on a day-to-day basis. 

The internal teams were divided based on their expertise under each of these practices and a structure was created. A specific Sales and Farming team came in to redirect the focus of each team on what they must/should do to achieve a customer first approach. A weekly customer location based meeting system was then introduced to check if the approach is working - and this helped!

Inputs from our past and current workforce members were critical to have different perspectives. To this extent, models that worked well and better were brought back and implemented and this worked yet again as an additional channel to the newer models! It was as well important to also align the support systems of the organization alongside the recruitment function. Hence, the Human Resources and the Finance Offices are currently being re-aligned to help the changes implemented in line with the workforce and customer models. 

We look forward to have a Customer and Workforce first approach in 2012-13. Our associates form a critical part of this development initiative. Faster growth prospects for aspiring individuals have been introduced to take up newer challenges and tasks within MapleCode. We look to have associates come forward with their thoughts, ideas and their newer suggestions always. 

About MapleCode
MapleCode is a specialized Executive and Technology Search Business established in the year 2009. MapleCode is presently based in Bangalore, India and delivers specialized Search consulting services across India, Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas. 

About the Author
Prashanth Vaidyan is a Senior Partner with the Technology Search Practice at MapleCode. He has been with the organization since inception and manages the Technology Mid Management Search assignments. Prashanth can be reach via prashanth.vaidyan@maplecode.com