New product development at
Innovation Management
GM0422
F22
GROUP 11
Duy Muoi Nguyen
Guillaume Shawky
Magnus Högberg
Mulas Salvatore
Nina Assadi
INTRODUCTION
Wipro Technologies was founded in 1945 by Azim Premji. In the 1980s, the company, which
had initially specialised in the sale of vegetable oil and cosmetics, made the transition to a
high-technology company. Wipro's initial decision to transition into the IT industry was
unsuccessful. Changing its business model from hardware manufacturing to software
services, in conjunction with strategic alliances with multinationals such as HP and IBM,
enabled the company to become a reliable IT service provider and the first to be listed on the
New York Stock Exchange in the year 2000 (Lee, K., Park, T. Y., & Krishnan, R. T. 2014).
Today, the company is one of the largest suppliers of IT-services and they make global
revenues of 1.2 billion dollars a year. Wipro's clients are interested in cost-effective
development that can take their products to the market within a shorter period of time as well
as with cut costs. In order to make this possible, Wipro uses the approach which they call
“extended engineering” that enables the client to outsource any part of their value chain,
including complete product development. (Goffin, K. & Mitchell, R. 2017)
Even though new product development is facilitated by co-location, working on multiple sites
can improve the innovation process if the organization leverages its own knowledge and
skills to provide high-value services on a global scale, while learning and continuously
adapting from each project. Whether it's traditional processes like production and distribution
or cutting-edge ones like product development, there's always room for enhancement. How
should managers promote and foster learning within their organizations?
1) What are the issues when NPD is conducted on several sites? How can they be
addressed?
Offshore services are those that are provided to a company that is physically located in a
different country. There are several pros and cons to using off-shoring. When offshoring
portions of your business, you can take advantage of decreased labour costs, access to highly
qualified skills among potential employees, and the freeing up of time for on-site managers to
develop other business areas and expand into new markets. The disadvantages of outsourcing
include loss of control, language barriers, and social and cultural differences. India is
currently regarded as a premier offshore location, which is where Wipro has a major facility.
This has resulted in a mismatch between supply and demand, resulting in increased costs for
this type of operation and a search for simpler and more affordable alternatives, such as
"nearshore." Compared to offshore, nearshore has advantages in terms of cultural differences,
travel costs, and an overall greater awareness of local constraints and regulation. (Lee, K.,
Park, T. Y., & Krishnan, R. T. 2014)
For this reason, beginning in 2007, the majority of companies providing offshore IT services
adopted the Global Delivery Model (GDM), which combines on-site, off-shore, and
near-shore businesses into multiple global locations. There are critical factors that need to be
present for GDM to work, such as large investments to mitigate and manage risk, a global
infrastructure that is scalable, and that the processes are highly mature (Lee, K., Park, T. Y.,
& Krishnan, R. T. 2014). By providing three distinct types of services, GDM seeks to
maximise efficiency and reduce the impact of costs.
According to the existing literature co-location aids in new product development.
Face-to-face communication and close collaboration help with the knowledge-intensive
exchange required for some activities. Co-located teams face fewer problems with project
management and behavioral bias. Moreover, working together contributes to the development
of a superior working environment based on loyalty, trust, and efficient collaboration.
(Lakemond, N., & Berggren, C. 2006). Challenges arise when coordinating the efforts of
engineers located in different locations. Wipro determined that establishing well-defined roles
and responsibilities was crucial to the success of the project and its timely completion. In
addition, Wipro adopted the "handshake" concept, establishing clearly defined goals and
determining whether both parties are completely satisfied with the work (Goffin, K., &
Mitchell, R., 2017).
As a global service provider, the first challenge to overcome is to increase the company's
cultural intelligence, which is defined as the capacity to communicate, establish relationships,
and work cooperatively with other firms from different cultures and customs (Ang, S., &
Inkpen, A. C. 2008). Firm-lever Cultural intelligence (CI) is a byproduct of organizational
intelligence, which is a crucial factor for making the right offshore decision and achieving
enhanced performance. Huber (1990) defined organizational intelligence as "the
organization's capacity to acquire, process, and interpret information external to the
organization as a decision-making input." Managing the cultural differences posed by
offshoring and increasing cultural intelligence will enable the company to be more creative
and get more innovative results within their business.
One potential drawback of working on multiple sites concerns losing opportunities for
technological advancements by becoming overly project-driven and concentrating solely and
exclusively on the needs of the client. This is why the "Innovation Council" was created. The
formation of the Innovation Council, composed of senior leaders and prominent clients, will
likely lead the business to innovate via partnership collaborations. To continue innovating, it
is essential to acquire both "vertical skills," such as technological and IT skills, and
"horizontal skills," such as finance, sociology, and business strategies. To lead continuous
improvement, it is essential for an R&D organization to establish a strong connection with
the ecosystem, focusing on the development of collaborations based on mutual assistance and
constant feedback from key stakeholders across the entire scope of the offered product or
service. It is crucial to emphasise the significance of an inclusive approach. Innovation
should originate from internal strengths (incubation program) as well as ecosystem and client
collaboration (Wipro website).
Wipro has also advanced by planning to establish a Digital Innovation Hub in Düsseldorf.
This move will encourage company collaboration, support technical advancements, and
leverage complementary skills, improving the companies' ability to compete and succeed in
the market (Wipro website).
In order to provide high-quality services on a global scale, Wipro must cultivate its own
knowledge and abilities. The optimal strategy is to capitalize on R&D advancements,
improve internal education, increase investment in on-the-job training, and acquire external
sources of valuable knowledge via mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances. Wipro
has established Centres of Excellence and the Wipro Academy for Software Excellence in an
effort to enhance its own R&D activities.
2) How can the product development process be optimised through learning from each
project?
By completing over 500 projects annually, Wipro has a tremendous opportunity to explore
numerous industry projects. Wipro can use this information to learn about the project's
strengths and weaknesses. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, Wipro analyzes
every completed project in order to gain valuable insights into not only technical fields, but
also management techniques.
According to Goffin and Mitchell (2017), the final phase of the product development process
is the project learning review or analysis. During this phase, the knowledge and experience
gathered throughout the project development process are documented for integration with the
organisation's knowledge and deployment on subsequent projects.
According to Schindler and Eppler (2003), there are 2 components for project learning:
experience and relevant documentation. Experiences, personal perceptions involved during
project implementation, and problem-solving processes are frequently not documented in
project documentation and are rarely transferred to other team members. Due to differences
in technology, methodology, and management style, previous project experiences may be lost
when team members move on to other projects. Relevant project documentation is a technical
report that documents project implementation standards and findings. However, project
documentation frequently lacks specific failure causes and procedures for developing an
effective solution. The risk of knowledge loss at the project's conclusion is substantial,
especially for Wipro, which completes hundreds of projects annually. After completing each
project, it is necessary to conduct an effective project learning review to prevent knowledge
loss and save time and money.
Goffin and Mitchell (2017) identified five essential elements for project review, including
timing; scope, atmosphere, and moderation; learning from successes and failures;
disseminating the results; and connecting the learning to actions.
Timing: A review of product learning should be conducted following the completion of
projects. Thus, it would be simple to recall the project's events. A project with a life-long
cycle requires a continuous accumulation of experience, as a delay in time could jeopardise
the members' memories of the project (Schindler and Eppler, 2003).
Scope, atmosphere, and moderation: To obtain the best results from project learning review,
project learning must pass through a "zone of uncomfortable debate" in order to identify the
underlying issues arising from new project development. This meeting should be conducted
in a "no-blame" environment so that members feel comfortable expressing their concerns.
Additionally, a skilled moderator is required to guide the meeting.
Learning from both successes and failures: Each successful and unsuccessful project has its
own lessons. A company will be able to continue to maintain good applications, processes,
and experience, as well as prevent the repetition of errors in future projects, by learning from
past errors. A company may be able to save time, money, and resources on each project if it
draws from its past experiences.
Dissemination of results: When conducting a project learning review, the dissemination of
results is crucial.
The outcomes may contain numerous valuable lessons applicable to
numerous departments and other projects. If not, other project teams may encounter the same
problems that a previous project resolved. Therefore, all project managers should consider the
dissemination of the results prior to initiating new projects.
Linking the learning to action: After the diffusion of the results, it would be challenging to
determine which lessons will be applied to solve the same problems. Therefore, a broker is
needed to ensure that solutions from previous projects can link to the present projects’ issues
in order to avoid repetition of mistakes.
After conducting a thorough project learning review, a company can use the knowledge and
experiences gained from previous projects to support current projects, particularly those in
the same field or related fields. In addition, this is what Wipro has done for their project
development procedure. Wipro has effectively utilized project learning review to acquire vast
technological and management-related knowledge and experience. As Wipro provides
long-term R&D for their clients, the project learning review enables Wipro to gain a
comprehensive understanding of numerous disciplines, which can contribute to new product
development. Wipro's "EagleVison" methodology, in which they successfully created VLSI
Space Design by reusing technological lessons from a previous project, was a shining
example of their ability to effectively reuse lessons learned from previous projects. In
conclusion, Wipro has successfully optimized project learning to benefit their product
development process, thereby satisfying customer demands at the appropriate time.
3) What should companies do to stimulate learning that is not just related to specific
NPD projects?
In general, companies strive to improve and perfect certain processes. Whether operational
functions, such as manufacturing and logistics, or innovative processes, such as the creation
of new products, there is always room for improvement. How should managers act to
stimulate and encourage learning within their organizations? According to Goffin
&
Mitchell, organizations can increase their levels of innovation and learning by implementing
specific cultures and leadership styles(Goffin, K., & Mitchell, R., 2017). In a culture of
innovation, failure is tolerated and, in some cases, even encouraged because it is viewed as a
learning opportunity. It is essential to tolerate ambiguity and accept failure, as this will lead to
the discovery of novel solutions to problems. In the article Meeting the Challenge of
Corporate Entrepreneurship (2006) by Garvin and Levesque, it is stated that trial and error
will form the basis of a company's strategy. Due to the ambiguity of new environments, it is
naive to assume that a strategy will initially be effective. Constant transformation of
strategies necessitates that the organization and its leadership be both open-minded and
disciplined, while remaining opportunistic. Garvin & Levesque (2006) outlined five methods
for connecting trial and error with rigour and discipline:
1. Narrow the playing field.
2. Learn from small samples, closely observed.
3. Use prototypes to test business models.
4. Track progress through nonfinancial measures. “conduct five customer trials in these two
industries in the next three months.”
For a business to be able to both lead and learn, it must be confident in a number of
fundamentals. However, as stated previously, the business environment is constantly
changing; therefore, how can businesses determine what is certain? Smith et al. (2016)
discuss paradoxical leadership, a leadership style that takes into account the decisions of two
opposite poles and their trade-offs. Leaders must acknowledge that there are multiple truths
in order to foster organizational learning. In order for the organization to grow, its leaders
must be humble and admit they do not know what the future will bring. The strategy will
promote experimentation and failure, thereby facilitating learning. This understanding
enables the management to be more dynamic. Unlike conventional management, dynamic
management responds differently to change and failure (Goffin, K., & Mitchell, R., 2017). As
failure is seen as a learning opportunity, it is tolerated and, in some cases, even encouraged. It
is essential to tolerate ambiguity and accept failure, as this will lead to the discovery of novel
solutions to problems.
There are established methods for companies seeking to diversify the skill sets of their
employees, from a more pragmatic and concrete perspective.
Since clients now expect consulting firms to have a broad range of expertise, it is no longer
acceptable for a company to employ only highly specialized workers. To remain competitive,
a large consulting firm must retrain and upgrade the skills of its current workforce.
Therefore, lifelong learning is currently the most advantageous management strategy.
First, it has been demonstrated that independent learning within a company, when it does not
involve the creation of a new project, is significantly more effective. The more autonomy an
employee has over his training decisions, the better the outcomes will be. If the company is
responsible for providing employees with the appropriate learning tools, it must conduct
surveys to determine everyone's interests and preferences. Consequently, rather than It is
preferable for the company to offer a variety of courses or to reimburse employees who take
courses on their own time, rather than offering targeted courses or readings.
Second, it is intriguing to make learning goals just as valuable as outcome or production
goals. In this way, the employee is not only encouraged to work efficiently on his or her
missions, but also to gain as much knowledge as possible in areas outside his or her area of
expertise. It is also possible to quantify learning objectives (internal learning certificate,
completion rate, challenges, etc.) and to establish regular check-ins with a mentor or manager
in order to monitor the employee's progress on his personal training. This follow-up with an
authority figure or a colleague can be done on a weekly or monthly basis, for instance. The
intention is not to create a professional imperative, but rather to provide everyone with the
opportunity to discuss the progress made on important projects and lessons.
Another major aspect of learning is social. In fact, the 70/20/10 rule in the distribution of
work time (70% of the time devoted to professional challenges, 20% to the development of
interpersonal relationships, and 10% to the learning of new skills) emphasizes the
significance of learning by encounter for each employee. Thus, the implementation of open
discussion groups or training sessions can be extremely beneficial for a business. Group
learning is highly regarded and can even generate original project ideas. Everyone can benefit
from this situation. Similarly, the presence of knowledgeable guests can satisfy employees
who wish to gain knowledge in a particular field.
Finally, two last effective practices are:
-
Establishing a rich and diverse resource library
Through this library, the company will be able to showcase its investments in employee
satisfaction. Through the variety of resources (videos, books, journals, masterclasses, SPOC,
LinkedIn Learning, etc.), everyone will be able to discover their preferences and thus develop
unique skills at the expense of the organization. This internal library may also contain
guidance from senior employees or company-savvy experts.
-
Recognition of employees' learning achievements
Despite the fact that learning is not as highly valued as financial or production goals, it is
equally important to recognize an employee's professional and personal contributions. It is
undeniable that an employee with a higher level of education, even in a field unrelated to his
or her missions, will be more effective. The ROI is therefore maximised for the company.
Everyone wins, and the risk of the employee leaving due to boredom is reduced.
In the case of Wipro, the application of these methods has produced excellent results. Here
are some examples:
● The introduction of a "talent transformation" program that trains engineers in a wide
range of areas, from innovative project management to multicultural team respect
rules. The instruction of non-professional skills has been well received and is now
widely utilized throughout the organization.
● The implementation of a highly effective mentoring system that enables junior
managers to receive valuable counsel from senior managers. This method makes the
transfer of internal skills much easier and more accessible to everyone.
● The creation of an "Innovation Council" that allows each employee to propose
innovative ideas and to develop new skills by working on projects unrelated to their
initial missions.
● The implementation of the internal software TopGear, which encourages employees to
participate in learning programs and expertise sharing and discussion sessions via
crowdsourcing.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Wipro acknowledges that it must invest in its own intellectual growth in order
to meet the growing global demand for its services. In addition, it is crucial to emphasize the
significance of an inclusive strategy, a strong connection with the ecosystem, and client
collaboration, as well as the acquisition of valuable knowledge through mergers and
acquisitions and strategic alliances.
Increasing cultural intelligence and finding effective ways to deal with the cultural
differences that arise as a result of offshoring will help the company generate new ideas and
approaches to old problems. Scratching their new product development process optimization
Wipro has placed an emphasis on project learning, and as a result, they have been able to
meet customer demands. Wipro has successfully implemented lessons learned from previous
projects, saving time and money on R&D and management processes.
In addition, it is in the best interest of modern businesses to encourage their employees to
develop skills unrelated to NPD as much as possible. This can be accomplished by granting
each employee autonomy, valuing completed learning, conducting frequent follow-ups and
discussions with other employees or subject matter experts, providing a wealth of diverse
resources, and rewarding them at the conclusion of each learning stage.
Sources
Ang, S., & Inkpen, A. C. (2008). Cultural intelligence and offshore outsourcing success: A
framework of firm‐level intercultural capability. Decision Sciences, 39(3), 337-358.
Garvin, D. & Levesque, L. (2006). Meeting the Challenge of Corporate Entrepreneurship.
Goffin, K. & Mitchell, R. (2017). Innovation Management. Third edition.
Lakemond, N., & Berggren, C. (2006). Co-locating NPD? The need for combining project
focus and organisational integration. Technovation, 26(7), 807-819.)
Lee, K., Park, T. Y., & Krishnan, R. T. (2014). Catching‐up or leapfrogging in the Indian IT
service sector: Windows of opportunity, Path‐creating, and moving up the value chain.
Development Policy Review, 32(4), 495-518.
Schindler, M. and Eppler, M., (2003). Harvesting project knowledge: a review of project
learning methods and success factors. International Journal of Project Management, 21(3),
pp.219-228.
Smith, Wendy K., Lewis, Marianne W., and Michael L Tushman. (2016). Both/And
Leadership, Don’t worry so much about being consistent. Harvard Business Review.
https://www.wipro.com/innovation/how-to-succeed-with-innovation/
https://www.wipro.com/newsroom/press-releases/2020/wipro-plans-to-set-up-digital-innovati
on-hub-in-dusseldorf-germany/