Leading in innovation
More than 70 German industry leaders from business, management and research flocked together at the end of November for a day's reflection on the theme '
Living Innovation – a head start through leadership and IT '. The event was hosted by Forum Kiedrich, of which Oracle is the main partner. Dr Jürgen Weber, chairman of the Lufthansa supervisory board, shared his experience building the Star Alliance.
The meeting took place at the Lufthansa Aviation Center in Frankfurt and attendees included Prof. Tom Sommerlatte (chairman, Arthur D. Little), Jürgen Jaworski (general manager, 3M), Prof. Dr Dieter Spath (CEO, Fraunhofer IAO) and Friedrich von Metzler (owner of the bank B. Metzler).
The event was opened by Dr Küchler, director of Lufthansa Systems and host for the day; Claudia Erben, director of Forum Kiedrich; and Jürgen Kunz, managing director of Oracle Germany.
Dr Jürgen Weber, chairman of the Lufthansa supervisory board and founder of the Star Alliance, delivered a moving presentation entitled 'Leadership and innovation – leading networks successfully'. He described the development of Lufthansa during its most difficult times and highlighted the relationship between innovation, leadership and IT. The central lesson from his presentation was that of leadership as a lifestyle, executed with heart, understanding and trust. For innovation to flourish, it requires a leadership culture built on trust. This is the recipe for success adopted by the Star Alliance, a network of 17 airlines. That business model is only possible because it is a partnership among equals, a partnership of leaders with no single party dominating the group. And trust reduces complexity and red-tape.
Following that presentation, Dr Dieter Spath, director of the Fraunhofer Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation (IAO), gave a motivational talk about 'IT as the engine of innovation', illustrated with vivid examples. IT forms the basis for a variety of product and process innovations, he said, with new E-Business solutions enabling new processes to be created between companies, and enabling the efficiency of existing processes to be improved. Business to business (b2b) e-commerce was worth EUR5.8 billion in 2006, and is increasing by more than 50% annually. This clearly shows that global wealth creation networks can be realised using E-Business applications. That applies not just to manufacturing, but to services too. Dr Spath reported that there is much potential yet to be exploited in the area of b2b IT. New or extended IT systems based on Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) and automatic process workflows can create open solutions that can form the basis for many process innovations. Examples include knowledge based electronic document processing, automatic decision making and better support of marketing communications through digital channels. Such process innovations can further increase the competitiveness of the enterprise.
The podium discussion led by Victoria Ossadnik, senior director consulting Oracle Germany, closed the day with the participation of Jürgen Kunz, Jürgen Jaworski, Klaus C. Plönzke, CEO Plönzke Holding AG, Tom Sommerlatte und Dieter Spath. This session sparked at times controversial debate, creating a context favourable for learning. The time flew by such that at the end of the session, the attendees requested and were granted an extension and the discussion continued over dinner.
Viola Albrecht, innovation manager for Oracle Germany, said: "You could really feel how the theme of IT, innovation and leadership engages many decision makers. Shortly after sending out the initial invitations we were already fully booked. We can tell we've hit a nerve with this concept and there is a need for much more discussion. This was reflected in the participant score for the idea and conception which was 1.33 out of 5, where 1 is excellent."
Oracle has been the main partner of Forum Kiedrich since Oracle's 2007 financial year.
Forum Kiedrich was created to be a platform for communication and networking, with a particular focus on promoting business innovation.
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