I’ve always struggled to understand innovation. Does it happen through a structured process, or is it intuitive? Can you train yourself to be innovative, or is it an inherent trait? Is it a habit, an art, or a combination of all these? My journey over the last 40 years has been an exploration of these questions. I’m still trying to figure it out.

Fresh out of business school, as green as spring grass, I found myself at the helm of a sales team in the cutthroat Mumbai market. The good news? I had a team. The bad news? We might as well have been selling snow in Siberia—our product wasn’t catching on, and our rivals were outpacing us tenfold.

In 2005, as we steered the transformation of a legacy company, our success hinged on securing new customers. In one fierce competition for a significant contract in Europe, our prospects seemed dim. Yet, I’ve always believed that adversity breeds innovation, and this time was no different.

It was a scorching June in 2014 in Patiala. I stood sweating in a stifling classroom, trying to persuade government school teachers to embrace a new teaching method. Decades of failures hung in the air, visible in their sceptical glances. Feeling humbled and slightly desperate, I gambled on ‘Banana Technology.’

The year was 1996-97. The Employee First, Customer Second transformation was in full swing. Employees were buzzing with excitement, but our customers remained unconvinced. They had many choices, and we struggled to offer something unique. Worse, our customer base was under constant attack from bigger competitors.
We needed something drastic to win our customers over. But how?