An innovative enterprise should have 3 firm pillars to build on, defined aspiration and strategy, actionable insights and a mobilized organization, says Anand Bajaj, chief innovation officer, YES Bank. Stating that the bank’s mobile-led remittances business was conceived as a business driver, but with a vision to serve unbanked rural customers, Bajaj says the bank incorporated an innovation into this by utilizing the mobile phone and letting customers transact through a BC. “This was a game changer,” says he.
Bajaj maintains that most innovations happen by reading through the customer tastes and understanding ground realities. A strong vision forms the heart of any innovation, but at the same time, an innovation need not be tricky, it should be as simple like tweaking the design principles of a pin to convert it into a clip. “Steve Jobs had once remarked about design led innovation that ‘design isn’t about how something looks, it is about how something works. And great design can motivate people to do things.’ That is the beauty of innovation. Simple things should motivate people to do great,” says he.
He hastens to add: “Trends are mere historical analysis. Innovation is ideally a process of contaminating the mindset of people. It occurs when innovators listen to market dynamics carefully.”
He says mobile as an innovation is fast picking up acceptance among customers. Bank of America was among the pioneers to offer an iPad enabled banking application. Industry estimates peg the global mobile industry to grow to 1.1 billion customers by 2015. 50% of financial institution customers would be mobile banking customers by 2015, he adds.
