SuSI (Supported Smart Innovation) Leads Strategic Innovation by everis

1. Introduction

SuSI (Supported Smart Innovation) was created in 2014 as a strategy to offer new value to our clients. The mission of the department is to promote, industrialize, and facilitate the company’s innovation processes transversally in the business units (BUs), business sectors, and cross areas^* (Fig. 1). We are also very committed to taking part in innovative research and development (R&D) activities such as Innovation Hub with NTT DATA, and we work closely with Japan and other EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) operating companies in the NTT Group.

Fig. 1. everis is a matrix organization.

2. Innovation horizons at everis

everis [1] is following an innovation strategy that covers three innovation horizons. In horizon 1, our business sectors and cross areas lead the production evolution of existing technology and markets through improvements, extensions, and operational cost reductions. In horizon 2, which is the one led by SuSI, we explore existing markets and technology, but unlike in horizon 1, our activities are centered on next-generation products for core markets as well as asset development. Horizon 3 is focused on disruptive innovation led by the everis nextGen unit (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Innovation horizons.

In summary, we can say that horizon 1 identifies new needs and improves current business practices, horizon 2 works on meeting mid-term innovation business needs, and horizon 3 looks for disruptive innovation for the long term. However, once horizon 3 has reached a mature level, we go back to horizon 2 to develop new innovation use cases. Finally, this innovation will enrich the portfolio of the business sectors in horizon 1 and increase the value they offer.

The knowledge acquired is transferred continuously between the different horizons, and those involved provide the corresponding feedback to each other.

3. Activities of SuSI: strategic innovation

As a strategy, we have established a strategic innovative framework. The activities carried out by SuSI are focused on three main areas. The first is strategic innovation, in which the objective is to introduce a systematic process of innovation and the creation of innovative DNA in the company. The second one, funding, provides support in obtaining competitive funding by offering information about external funding and assistance in accessing it. The third is monetization, which supports BUs in obtaining tax deductions related to research, development, and investment (R+D+I) and controls the investment in assets and the generation of intellectual property (IP). The funding and monetization efforts are extremely important for our innovation strategy.

The strategic innovation effort establishes an innovation process that starts with market research, generation and evaluation of ideas, transformation of the ideas into projects and the seeds of the future product portfolio, through to evaluation and monitoring of the results (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Strategic innovation.

Concretely, the first stage (Watching) consists of the complementary initiatives Research Services (providing specific information for BUs from the best insights and reports from analysts such as Gartner, Ovum, etc.), Up2Date, and Trendnology. Up2Date is a tool that scans hundreds of sources and detects future trends in order to provide the most relevant and updated short-term information on technologies and innovations that can affect or be used by the business sectors and cross units. It is one of the initiatives we are collaborating with NTT DATA on as part of the NTT DATA Technology Foresight annual report (NDTF) [2] (Fig. 4) in order to identify new trends in their early stage. Trendnology is the other initiative, a tool to gather informed opinions by taking advantage of the best sources (Up2Date, researchers, scientific articles) and internal and external experts in a three-axis matrix: technology, business impact, and social challenges our company is facing. Trendnology will connect and reduce the gap in a natural way between short-term innovation and long-term research, which is the focus of the NDTF. The combination of all these initiatives could also be used as a validation tool for internal decision making on investments and to align technology and business dimensions.

Fig. 4. NTT DATA Technology Foresight.

For the second and third stages (Identifying and generating ideas for projects and Evaluating those ideas), SuSI proposes initiatives such as Hackathon (with the first NTT DATA Global Hackathon taking place last November in Barcelona) and Open Challenges along with the BUs to help them gather and select the best ideas suited for the next sector’s challenges. These ideas will be some of the seeds for developing assets.

In the next stage (Transforming ideas into projects) the coaching/mentoring starts for the teams working on the selected ideas to help them develop the ideas using world-class innovative methodologies such as Design Thinking, Value Proposition, and Business Model Canvas, and then starting Agile development with the Lean Startup approach to gain their first insights.

In the final stage, once the BUs have confirmed their commitment with the Open Challenges results, the ideas go into a new level of technological incubator called everis assets (eASSETS) (Fig. 5). This asset incubator was created for the purpose of facilitating all of the company’s initiatives in asset development and tackling the asset life cycle management so that the created asset is a readily marketable product. This process, which starts with idea assessment, is supported by four important pillars: a specific methodology that addresses the entire asset life cycle, specific tools to carry out the development (such as Altemista or Cognitive Assisted Development (CAD), whose details are presented in section 4), technical teams specialized in asset development, and a cultural management process within the company that encourages people to innovate and change from thinking about projects to thinking about products.

Fig. 5. everis assets (eASSETS).

In this process, the technical team as well as client managers, the outsourcing team, BPO (business process outsourcing), and the Agile and Idea teams are involved. The methodology is very effective, and the results are impressive, especially thanks to the specialized eASSETS professionals, who support the entire asset maturation and incubation process, and also thanks to the company commitment that encourages encapsulating the everis knowledge in attractive products to customers and markets.

Other cross initiatives such as Innovation School - InnCub3 or The Wall focus on generating innovative DNA and supporting a vibrant community of innovators. InnCub3 offers training in practical innovation skills in coordination with everis University (internal educational programs). These activities are also supported by our innovation ambassadors within the BUs.

The Wall is the monthly newsletter sent to the innCub3rs community (people identified as having an innovative profile in the company) that reports on innovation and creativity aspects: news, invitations to workshops, courses, talks, recommendations of videos, and articles.

Finally, I will explain the support of the Funding and Monetization teams. The Funding team provides assistance in getting competitive funding by offering information and support to BUs and sectors in accessing external funding. We focus mainly on public R&D funding opportunities provided by the European Commission. The requirements are very strict, and it is a very difficult competition. Nevertheless, we have succeeded in obtaining more than 1.5 million euros per year. For example, we have recently won two projects: one about blockchain applied to avoid fake news, and the other about artificial intelligence applied to medical images in order to detect and predict illness (e.g. cancer).

The Monetization team leads the process of obtaining tax deductions related to R+D+I for the created assets. This effort helped the company reduce its taxes by about half a million euros in fiscal year (FY) 2017. The team also helps the BUs draft business plans and observes their commercial achievements. In this way, we manage asset investment and IP generation.

4. Asset creation of SuSI

When we identify assets that will be part of the core transverse strategy of the company, SuSI is also in charge of their development. In addition to Up2Date, Trendnology, and eASSETS already mentioned, we have developed everisKnowler and CAD.

5. Conclusion

SuSI is based at everis Aragón (Zaragoza), where I have been the director since its establishment in 2009. It is the central office for SuSI’s asset development. It is also the base for other units such as the Center of Excellence of AI, where the artificial intelligence platform everisMoriarty is being developed, the DevOps team, which is working on Altemista, and other specialized centers for digital experience and architecture. The operation scale of everis Aragón is getting larger each year, and FY 2017 closed with a turnover of 10 million euros thanks to our innovation, an increase of 30–40% compared with the previous year. The forecast for FY 2018’s turnover is 12 million euros. Our team consists of 265 professionals, and we plan to add about 80 more people this year. It makes us feel very proud to lead the innovation of everis and to coordinate all the relationships regarding innovation with NTT DATA. We hope to boost our group collaboration even more in the future.

References

[1]	M. Alba, “everis and the Next Generation of Digital,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 14, No. 10, 2016. https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=ntr201610ga1.html
[2]	NTT DATA Technology Foresight, https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/foresight/trend-listing/trend-archive