Innovation and originality: A distant phenomena?

No, I’m not talking about breaking all the ground rules and going on to do something completely over-the-top just to show how innovative and different one could be. Neither would I suggest you to idolize Micheal Jackson as far as his blind crave for the color ‘white’ is concerned. Its simply not required. All that needs to be done is to make sure that we use the ‘right’ side of our brain, more often than not. Unfortunately, this is something that’s not quite the norm as of now (at least in our day to day lives) and the results are there for all to see.

If you’ve noticed, off late, there has been an air of sameness and monotony around us.You switch on the TV and you would find those numerous 24 X 7 news channels presenting the same news, in a similar manner and using similar tactics to attract the audience. Whats the difference between a certain ‘Times Now’ and ‘Headlines Today’? Hardly any. You find companies coming up with the same products, providing similar services, using similar promotional strategies and employing people possessing similar skill sets. Where’s the difference? Advertising campaigns focus more on maligning the competitor’s products instead of promoting their own work (The Cola war). You find politicians coming up with similar election campaigns, promising similar benefits to the ‘naive’ citizens and ultimately forgetting every single word of it like their innumerable predecessors. Where’s that one unique individual?

Each one of these entities mentioned above could be replaced by the other and it would hardly make a difference. Everyone is so busy copying and imitating others that they seem to ignore their most prized possession, ‘a human brain’. What we see around is the true reflection of our thoughts. Just yesterday I was watching a talent hunt programme on MTV. Each one of the contestants was asked a simple question “What is your dream in life?”. The answers left me shocked. 90% of the answers were on the lines of “I want to be the next Shahrukh Khan”, “I want to be the Bill Gates of India”, “I want to dance like Hrithik Roshan”, “I dream of becoming Aishwariya Rai”. This was the youth of India on display. From the replies it was very evident that instead of aiming at carving out their own identity, these people were hell bent on following others blindly. Getting inspired by the greats is not a bad thing at all, but trying to be like one at the expense of your own identity doesn’t really make sense, does it?

A couple of days back I met a couple of friends who are planning to start their online entrepreneurial venture. I asked them to provide me with a brief description of their objectives and targets. They handed me a printed sheet. Each and every printed statement was targeted at how their venture could beat this particular ‘xyz.com’. The foundation of a new business was nothing else but that of a potential competitor. I simply couldn’t understand as to why were these people not trying to present their own ideologies in front of the world. Why were they not willing to come with a unique business plan instead of copying an existing one? Ultimately I had to settle for a shocking reality-check…”People are no longer willing to create their own unique identity and the same reflects in what they do. ” Where’s the ‘escape velocity’ required to break the shackles of mental restrictions?

We have become so used to the conventional stuff that neither are we willing to be unique and nor do we backup someone who wants to be unique. These days the world laughs at someone who wants to go out of the way and do something different. A techie who also shows interest in the operational and managerial stuff is laughed at and accused of not being clear about his goals. People are not willing to accept individuals possessing a multi-dimensional thought process and this is what promotes a singleton mindset and a copy-cat tendency.

How great it would be if each and every individual was willing to march out of the comfort zone and discover his/her unique skills. The world would be so different if companies could put more thought into creating unique products and services instead of blindly competing with the rivals. In short, if each and every individual starts unleashing the true power of the human brain, this planet would be a far more interesting place to live in and may be then we could truly be proud of having made a difference to the society as a whole.

Now Pound starts depriciating against the value of INR

Just when you thought that the entire Dollar-Rupee value chaos had been refactored successfully, here comes another thorn in the flesh. After USD its the turn of British Pound to play havoc with INR. The value of Pound has depriciated by almost 5% against the INR in just a matter of few days. The Pound which was valued close to Rs.82 at the beginning of this quarter, slipped to Rs.77 in the month of March.

Its worth being noted that after the Dollar crisis, most IT companies were speeding up the process of penetrating the European market, specially UK. But now that the British Pound has also started playing games with the INR, the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind is “What next?” The good news however is that contrary to the British Pound, the Euro is appreciating in its value with reagrds to the INR. The value of Euro has appreciated from Rs.55 to Rs.63 in a matter of three months. Luckily for Cognizant, most of its European expansion plans at the moment are centred on Eastern Europe, where Euro is the traded currency.

However, this entire currency uncertainty, has brought to the forefront the need for an exceptionally innovative strategy that would somewhat decrease the inter-dependency of margins and currency. How long would we be able to market our USP of providing low-cost solutions? Ploys like presenting a company as the ultimate customer satisfaction ambit is fine, but definitely some radical work needs to be done on the financial operating model. Probably the organization which comes up with the most innovative financial model to counter-attack this problem would walk away with the honours in the next decade.