Cut Through Innovation Center Hype to Maximize Value

If you’re an enterprise services customer, you’re probably getting invitations right and left to visit innovation labs, design hubs, or insight centers. You are probably wondering, “Why should I visit?” and “What’s in it for me?” HFS Research recently visited Wipro’s innovation center in Silicon Valley for its Next Gen CRM event, and we have the ins and outs of navigating your next innovation center visit (or the next trendy term du jour).

At the Wipro Silicon Valley Innovation Center, a team of designers, consultants, and engineers presented 40 curated use cases of innovative client solutions. The Wipro team demonstrated a handful of examples to illuminate the work it is doing with clients. One field service example showed how iSolve, a cognitive assistant, leveraged IoT components to quickly and seamlessly resolve a broken dishwasher issue. Another solution used Salesforce IoT to monitor and send alerts about a temperature-controlled supply chain. These are all excellent examples, but they are polished demonstrations—we found the most exciting tidbits after we rolled up our sleeves and looked for the action…

Find out what’s really going on behind the scenes to uncover innovation center gold by looking behind the curtains

Wipro’s Innovation hub delivered the requisite sophisticated ambiance with giant, invisible screens and elegant live demos. But a lot is going on behind the sleek, theater-like demo room where professionally made videos put a Hollywood-style spin on the art of the possible. To slice through the hype, use your time wisely and investigate the unique ideas and results coming out of the center:

• Ask to see what the innovation folks are working on. When we checked out what was going on behind closed doors at the NextGen CRM event, we discovered some interesting solutions Wipro is developing with Wipro customers and partners. For example, there’s a prototyping room where engineers are working with partners to embed sensors in airplane seats to test durability and comfort. HFS also watched a personalized demo of a unique cognitive assistant use case: Wipro is developing a cognitive “Personal Change Assistant” to help increase adoption of new technologies within enterprises with the goal of ZTC (zero touch change), which is smoothing over the implementation process for new technologies for users and employees.

• Examine the partner landscape. It’s increasingly important for service providers to have a robust partner ecosystem in the hyper-connected economy. Any visit to an innovation hub will likely feature an array of partners which the service provider is leaning on to make the innovations come to life. Wipro’s NextGen CRM event featured demos that covered industry use cases powered by solutions from Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, SAP and the likes of Avaamo for conversational AI and Electric Imp for IoT networking. Hearing from partners helps to complete the vision of the ecosystem and what technologies are really required to deliver on the solutions being developed. If the service provider has invited analysts to the event, take advantage of the opportunity and get a third-party view from industry experts who have a broader view of the market and ecosystem and can provide additional viewpoints and resources. Asking incisive questions of these stakeholders about what’s currently happening, and the future possibilities, will help develop a well-rounded perspective.

• Get advice from other customers. The pièce de résistance at Wipro’s Next Gen CRM event was a customer presentation featuring a top medical device company. The client shared a compelling story about its development work with Appirio, Wipro’s Salesforce business line, to revolutionize not only its IT platform but customer experience for sales support. The result was a lot of discussion about solutions developed and results– such as a new capability which allows surgeons and nurses to virtually design their ORs as part of the sales process, which has helped the company win over new business including a coveted hospital account. Meaty lessons learned from some of the bumps in the road this customer encountered– included the lengthy process it can take to gain executive sponsorship and get leaders aligned on a new infrastructure organization and blueprint for an entirely new platform. The speaker emphasized the importance of taking a calculated risk to prove results by piloting and experimenting along with partners. He also gave a glimpse into the future of the company’s strategy and a perspective on what he considers to be the hype-cycle of VR, which is finally starting to yield results as evidenced by the success they’ve had with their sales enablement solution.

The Bottom Line: Don’t miss the opportunity to visit an innovation hub. However, the difference in a “hit or miss” experience is how far you can peek behind the scenes for a glimpse of what’s to come.

Innovation center visits can be a great opportunity to get ideas, network, and see the art of the possible—but you must go in with a game plan to dig deep into the solutions the host is developing, ask lots of questions, and be prepared to come away with new ideas to potentially implement.