Saturday, January 28, 2012

Creating an Environment of Innovation- Pixar Style!

Hats off to business-application software market leader SAP’s chairman, Hasso Plattner, for his innovative approach to new product development. HANA, SAP’s new real-time business in-memory technology, will process complex business calculations in seconds that previously took hours or days. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Plattner hopes to put his main competitor, Oracle Corp., on the defensive. When HANA was announced in 2010, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called it “wacko” and said he wanted to know the name of SAP’s “pharmacist.”


In 2010, SAP launched the HANA pilot program and has pledged to grow to over $25 billion in revenue by 2015 on the back of HANA. In 2011, SAP posted revenues over $18 billion, up 14%. SAP’s 2011 profit of over $1.5 billion is more than double the net profit in 2010. Today, Mr. Ellison may indeed be searching for the name of SAP’s pharmacist!


In my opinion, the real story is not the technical details of this new software…it’s in the approach SAP co-founder and chairman, Mr. Plattner, used to develop HANA. Rather than calling on his army of in-house research-and-development engineers, he recruited a group of university students from Germany. In 2006, he formed a team comprised of three doctoral and a handful of undergraduate students to study in-memory technology. In a city outside of Berlin, he converted an abandoned railway building into “the villa” with red couches, flat screen TV and a foosball table. Mr. Plattner sketched a diagram of the new database model on a white board and told the team to build it. By 2007, they were ready to unveil their prototype, and by 2009, they had a working model.


The lessons we can learn from Mr. Plattner’s approach at SAP parallel the ones we write about in Innovate the Pixar Way:


· Become a prototype junky


· Develop your own “skunk works”


· Dream Big


· Use a planning center


· Find a customer or supplier to help test and refine your product (SAP tested their prototype in partnership with P&G)


· Support innovation in schools


Each year, Mr. Plattner continues to recruit a group of 6-8 students to conduct research. Kudos to Mr. Plattner and his innovative approach to new product development!


By Bill Capodagli

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Spring Fever in January is Contagious!

The leaders of The Disney Way implementation in Dowagiac understood very well the integration and interplay of Dream, Believe, Dare, Do in their cultural change efforts.  And, now, after a year, they are on DO!!!

As you envision a Dream, Believe, Dare, Do implementation in your own organization, think in terms of a holistic approach and never give up.  Dowagiac is a great role model for any community who aspires to live The Disney Way.

http://www.dowagiacnews.com/2012/01/11/spring-fever-in-january/

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Make a New Year’s Resolution to Reinvent your Company’s Policy Manual

  1. Remove any policy that does not add value to the customer, supplier or team member. Replace old verbiage with "work hard and be clever."
  2. Review the manual for "rules" that hinder the delivery of exceptional customer service. If you ever hear, "We cannot help you because it is against our policy," send up a red flag. Change this verbiage to "Use good judgment."
  3. Identify any policy that infers that you do not trust team members. Specifically, examine your expense reimbursement policy. One company decided to allow employees to issue their own expense checks. They had guidelines for tax documentation that were followed by all. The result was the elimination of most of the accounting approvals and a reduction in overall travel expense. We have worked with companies in which senior managers have multi-million dollar budgets and are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of product production, yet they need numerous approvals to spend $500 to attend a workshop. Why? That’s the policy!
  4. Use the words "have fun" in your policy manual. Pixar’s John Lasseter said, ““We worked really hard, but we also had so much fun, and it showed up in our work. We’d goof off,
    we’d laugh, we’d work together, and we’d look at
    and give feedback on each other’s stuff. And the
    creativity just sort of overflowed.”

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

DISNEY WAY WEBINAR–“Creating Magical Customer Service–The Disney Way”

Success isn't magic. It's systematic. It comes from passionate leadership and relentless pursuit of a long-term foundation for excellence. Behind the scenes at Disney is where the real vision begins. Disney excels because of its dynamic commitment to guests and to cast members.

On Wednesday, February 15th (2 – 3:30 PM EST), Bill Capodagli will share enlightening secrets to turn your customers into "guests" and into long-term relationships. You'll see how to foster a fun team atmosphere for your employees - one that energizes their talents and ideas. You'll also see "wow" in action and come away with a renewed passion for the possibilities within your own organization.
Walt Disney’s four-pillared success credo - Dream, Believe, Dare, Do - will work for any organization, any business, any industry of any size. Understanding the hows and whys will allow you to tailor your own pathway to success. You'll also see how other companies have applied The Disney Way with amazing results.

What's worked for Disney can work for you. It's that simple. If you're ready to take your organization to the next level, exceed your customers' expectations, and build a dynamic team…REGISTER TODAY on our HOME PAGE!Customer Service Model!

Creating Magical Customer Service – The Disney Way is the opportunity you've been waiting for!