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Box case 10.3

Vodafone Group Plc – future innovation

Vodafone Group Plc provides an extensive range of mobile telecommunications
services, and is the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company
with a staggering 146 million customers worldwide. As market leader and
with such a large customer base, Vodafone has found it essential to constantly
identify opportunities for technological and service innovation and this is the
responsibility of Group R&D.

Group R&D consists of 7 research & development centres round the world.
In Germany, Group R&D–D is officially known as Vodafone Pilotentwicklung
GmbH, which has 34 permanent employees, 20 contract staff and 20 students
from universities, all with a wide range of backgrounds. Its role is to analyse
trends and new technologies, build future visions, monitor ‘players’ (organizations
associated with the market), and track the business environment to
derive ideas for tomorrow’s competitive products and services. Their work
prepares the ground for specific R&D projects by prototyping possible future
products and services. To achieve this they have established a structured
approach to identify, evaluate, and utilize opportunities. This structure relies
on effective use of tools and techniques, networking and communication.

Vodafone Group R&D–D uses various tools and techniques. For analysing
technologies and markets, employees can choose from a range of individual
methods in the ‘Group R&D–D toolkit’. For example, this collection includes
several scenario planning methods. No individual employee is experienced in
the use of all tools and techniques but new employees are trained on the basic
methods. Since the toolkit is summarized as a single sheet mind map, it is
easy to identify where alternatives to the basic methods may be appropriate
and to contact experienced colleagues. Dr Christiane Hipp, who drives the
innovation process in Group R&D–D, says: ‘In dealing with the future we
have found it better not to rely on just one or two analysis methods as most
other companies do. As we have a portfolio of techniques available, this
means that we can look for the best tool for the job. It also provides variety
which is important in maintaining a fresh and energetic feel to our work.’
Vodafone has a philosophy of keeping individual R&D sites small, with
typically around 15 to 80 permanent employees. This means that Group
R&D–D employees need to communicate and network effectively with both
their internal and external contacts. Torsten Herzberg, a Group R&D–D freelancer,
says: ‘Innovation is often the result of communication between people
who do not have homogeneous ideas and so we need to stimulate constant
dialogue – internally and externally.’ This communication takes various
forms.

The Group R&D–D office in Munich is largely open plan and was designed
together with the well-known architect Professor Gunther Henn using his
‘programming concept’. In this the architecture of the office supports the way
employees work with, for example, several ‘marketplaces’ – open areas where
all employees can meet regularly and discuss their work. In addition to doing
everything to create an informal ‘culture of communication’, Group R&D–D
has regular short meetings where employees present their work, bounce ideas
around and discuss ‘lessons learned’ from previous projects.

Group R&D–D is also experimenting with bringing artists together with
their technical employees, to help stimulate creativity. They have found that
mixing artistic and technical thinking supports the creation of radically new
visions and ideas for their implementation. A symbol of the use of artistic
thinking is the traditional red English telephone box, which was installed in
the roof garden as part of a current project, where artists and technical
employees are investigating the role of ‘private’ areas for mobile phone calls
in today’s increasingly open-plan office environment.

To stimulate communication across the whole Vodafone organization,
Group R&D–D organizes both internal and external marketing, including the
Annual Conference. This is a two-day event where the whole of Group R&D
present new ideas and innovative projects. Around 150 Chief Technology
Officers and Strategy Directors from the Vodafone companies worldwide
attend the conference. There are various presentation sessions and an
‘Innovation Zone’ with live demonstrations of the latest prototypes of new
products and services. ‘Piloting and prototyping everything in a professional
and innovative way makes it possible not only for visitors to be able quickly
to understand the ideas but also to be able to give constructive feedback. It
requires a lot of effort but the conference has been hugely influential in optimizing
communication inside Group R&D, and between Group R&D and
Vodafone operations’, says Eva Weber, responsible for innovation marketing
and communication at Group R&D–D.