The Hindu Business Line : Want to innovate? Over here

IT may look like black magic but there is a lot of discipline and thought behind innovation, in Satyam Cherukuri's opinion. He should know. As Chief Executive Officer of Sarnoff Corporation, he leads the company's client-sponsored innovation model that takes customers through the innovation lifecycle — from market intelligence to product definition, to development and delivery. "From concept to launch, we enable companies to mature product ideas so they can reduce the risk (and time) in getting a product to market,'' says Cherukuri.

The half-a-century-old company has led the innovation of technologies from the first colour TV in 1950 to lasers, liquid crystal displays and digital video, to its current crop of products using vision technologies or optoelectronics.

The Princeton, New Jersey-based company has been called one of the most innovative companies in the 20th century and Cherukuri is working to ensure the sobriquet continues well into the new millennium as well.

RCA (Radio Corporation of America) Labs, as it was earlier called, worked on numerous electronic and defence projects during World War II, renamed itself the David Sarnoff Research Centre, and later was transformed into the Sarnoff Corporation. The company provides customised client solutions, licenses its technologies and patents, and has several spinoffs to its credit. Cherukuri was in India to start its India centre and gave eWorld the Sarnoff view of innovation.

Leaving nothing to chance

Innovation is often associated with serendipity (the faculty of making happy discoveries by accident.) The image of the scientist stumbling upon something at his lab, alone, is too anecdotal an approach to how innovation happens, says Cherukuri.

At Sarnoff, "we systematise several aspects of innovation, called the SPMI model. These are four processes we iterate on and they consist of four elements," he says.

Space — a new material or tool or algorithm can be done in a space in which there is competence and in which there are product possibilities.

Sarnoff's Position in that space "will depend on what kind of disruption we can bring to existing systems and markets. We explore if there is a technological innovation, or in cost or just a change in business perspective that could change the market dynamics. For instance, we developed a disposable hearing aid for a company that wanted to invest in the space because of its demographic potential. We did not set about building a better hearing aid, just changed market dynamics by making it a disposable one," he says.

"We focus on developing a good business Model - how do you make money, how much and when. Then we consider the investment and get a view on the risks involved. The process is sequential and iterative on a constant basis. We are setting ourselves specific tasks in the innovative process and are not waiting for serendipity to strike," he says.

Shake up status quo

Innovation inherently focuses on disrupting the ecosystem. If not, it is an operational improvement, says Cherukuri. It is only when the status quo is shaken up that there are newer markets created or money to be made. The disruption could vary in its impact and in its visibility"An operational innovation is best done in an operational setting. If Thomson wants to introduce a new DVD player, it will have to be in production by September to catch the Christmas season. That is an activity that can be planned for. Innovation has an element of risk to it. A better car can be designed by the carmaker. A new and significant safety feature in automobiles — such as vision technologies that increase safety and reduce the consequences of a collision — can come from focussed development outfits such as ours," he says.

Market pull vs technology push

A number of key market forces come together to cause the disruption that can enable one innovation or technology to surge forward.

For instance, five years ago, vision technologies for auto safety were not a possibility as cameras were not small enough or cheap enough. Processors were not fast enough to compute and compare images in real-time.

"We could have thought about the possibilities of the technology but that would have anticipated their practicality. It is only now that all these factors are converging to ensure the success of the technology. At Sarnoff, we not only wait for technologies to develop but also give direction to our customers. We cannot afford to be reactive - there is a lot of technology push involved in getting potential customers interested in a project and then we evaluate the pull before to refine our approach," he says.

Vision - hottest technology

The hottest is vision. This involves artificial intelligence, video, digital video processing which is ubiquitous due to cell-phones. If PCs can start looking at and interpreting images, the range of applications is wide open. There is robotic vision for manufacturing, defence applications, aerial surveillance, medical imaging and tracking elements of soft tissue.

There are applications in consumer electronics... it is a fundamental technology that is coming of age, says Cherukuri, and Sarnoff concentrates on digital video, communications and networking, materials and displays, vision, integrated circuits, life sciences, optoelectronics and information systems.

priya@thehindu.co.in

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