Innovation:
24th September, Novotel Hotel, London

On 24th September, 2009, we hosted our latest event for our ‘Centre for Essential Industries’ series which was formed to tackle current issues and increase ‘Know How’ across these industries. The day was focused on ‘Innovation’ with several interesting presentations.


Steve Norris, Chairman of AMT-SYBEX, kicked things off and in his opening remarks discussed these unprecedented times in global economic history, requiring us all to innovate and think about new ways of working. Companies must ensure they do not fall behind in the race. We should all be aware that prospects for the economy are still very difficult and that the next UK Government, of which ever colour, will have to make draconian cuts.

Our first speaker was Phil Hufton, Chief Maintenance Officer for London Underground Limited. He described the background to the creation of the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) to maintain the infrastructure of the tube; Phil is challenged to substantially reduce maintenance costs in LUL over the next three years; innovation is helping him to achieve this. LUL’s maintenance objectives are underpinned by the safety of people, assets and finance. Using a balanced scorecard and visualisation approach, LUL has created a culture where good housekeeping is second nature. Amongst other benefits their single asset management system has generated efficiency savings and processes to cover 100% of maintenance requirements.


Chris Murray, Director of UK Transmission for National Grid, gave us an insight into the changing face of the UK's energy scene. The focus of the presentation was looking at the challenges posed by the need for transition to a low carbon economy. Chris made the point that access to cheap energy has impeded our focus on energy efficiency and so we have to change. NG is playing a key role in balancing the requirements of the energy policy triangle; that is affordability, sustainability and security of supply. He emphasised that national policy statements need to be in place to allow targets to be met through work to remove network constraints. NG has to find new ways of achieving these objectives and so have created alliances with 18 companies across the globe to innovate and be more efficient.


Following the morning break, Shabir Hussain, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, from the Metropolitan Police described the technology behind ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) while making the point that basic policing has not changed but technology has. With integration to various databases such as the Police National Computer and those of the DVLA, the strategy is to maximise the use of vehicle movement intelligence through the use of ANPR data. Current innovation is around Interoperability with airport car parks, tunnel cameras and petrol forecourt CCTV. Shabir then discussed future innovation related to ANPR such as the ability to disable a vehicle’s engine and so prevent or curtail a pursuit. He drew out a common theme of the day which was that innovation should help to keep sight of the bigger picture rather than constantly ‘chasing the ball’ (problem, fault or crime).


Philip Ross, CEO of the Cordless Group, spoke about Life in the ‘Cloud’ and highlighted how we have had ‘anchored’ technology for some time with workers tending to commute to a single building. The Cordless Group set out to overcome the fact that often there is nowhere between office and home and in so doing helped the British Library become Europe’s busiest hotspot. Philip examined our journey towards a digital society with internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We were shown how Web 2.0 is all about FUSE (Find, Use, Share, Expand). He gave us examples of traffic from inanimate devices which, Cisco believes, will overtake traffic from human beings within 2 years. We heard about the IP mousetrap that sends a signal when it is ‘full’ and ‘intelligent’ washing machines and fridges.  Philip finished by making the point that innovation related to the future of work will be about removing your corporate overhead.


The second presentation after lunch was given by Manoj Badale, Chairman of the Rajasthan Royals, winners of the inaugural Indian Premier League. Manoj described innovation as the only way to compete with the ‘big guys’ in cricket and felt there had been more innovation in the last 5 years than the previous 50. In 1990 Indian Cricket TV rights were worth $80 million; next year (2010) they are expected to be worth $1.1billion. Manoj stated that the reasons for the increase were the dramatic increase in the number of people watching in India. He said that innovation must be agile; it needs an approach where great strategy is laying out the path to the ‘vision’ but having the capability to change that path when necessary. He felt cricket has been able to innovate because it has happened outside of the traditional administration.


Our final speaker was Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent for Sky News. Jon got off to a lively start reminiscing about previous encounters with the AMT-SYBEX Chairman. He then discussed innovation in three areas; politics, political campaigning and political reporting. Jon was passionate about the need for parliament to reform through innovation, stating that the culture is still very old fashioned with petty rules. His insights into campaigning mentioned how the Labour party were trying to learn from President Obama’s work with the internet. He was unsure about the podcasts from Gordon Brown but thought ‘WebCameron’ worked quite well. He believes the General Election date next year will be in May next year and politics will be on a ‘helter-skelter’ ride until then. In speech-making we were given details of David Cameron’s interesting technique for keeping himself on his toes when making speeches (borrowed from Enoch Powell!) As for political reporting innovation, Jon spoke further about blogs, ‘tweets’ and Sky News’s campaign for a Leader Debate before May next year. He made the point that this will be the first Facebook/Twitter General Election perhaps with changes in how and when votes are counted.


Presentations from the day

Phil Hufton


Chris Murray


Shabir Hussain