'Innovation comes from design thinking'
A data center operated by SAP is seen at its headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. / Courtesy of SAP Korea
By Kim Yoo-chul
SAP sets to build innovation center in Korea for clients
By Kim Yoo-chul
HEIDELBERG, Germany ― Tobias Haug helps businesses solve problems especially when they don't know what problems are.
He is the head of strategic design services at Design & Co-Innovation Center at SAP, the world's top provider for corporate solutions and the biggest German firm in terms of total asset values.
Haug and his team at AppHaus inside the center help clients identify and answer design-focused questions. He calls the process "finding what's next for corporations and designing products and strategies for new organizational structures.”
"Helping our clients find their next business models by utilizing SAP's in-house matchmaking tools is really fun," Haug told The Korea Times during an interview at the center, Sunday (KST).
His team, which consists of strategists, designers and project managers, is collaborating with its other offices in Palo Alto, the United States, and Berlin to offer end-to-end design services that help customers address their user experience needs.
Set up in a former tobacco factory in the historic Landfried Complex in downtown Heidelberg, the SAP AppHaus echoes aspects of start-up culture, where new companies renovate industrial space and work in multi-disciplinary teams.
SAP strategists and designers talk with officials from unnamed clients to help them find new business ideas at its AppHaus in the German city of Heidelberg, Sunday. / Courtesy of SAP Korea
For SAP, innovation means co-innovation. "Co" stands for close cooperation with its customers.
Stressing moves by leading Korean companies, Haug said his team crosses disciplines to create solutions for a diverse business portfolio of clients including Samsung, Siemens of Germany, Daikin of Japan and others across the globe.
"Design thinking is not about branding and graphics. Actually, it's about simplification to save costs and ensure better decision-making. The key focus is on features that can matter the most and that have a meaningful impact, which finally become the epicenter of reliable brands, solutions, and organizations," said the executive.
For example, Samsung Electronics, the world's top producer in handsets, is on track to find "what's next" for sustainability after the Korean company began to feel the pinch to offset growing investors' concerns amid falling profit in its key mobile business.
Samsung is reaching into new business territories that haven't existed or were untouched before. Haug said innovators in technology industries are increasingly focusing on simplicity to uncover new and better ways to work.
The AppHaus Heidelberg has already won major contracts.
Previously, SAP partnered with the Stanford School of Medicine and the National Center for Tumor Diseases, here, to design a simplified, easy-to-navigate digital experience to access and analyze patient data.
Haug said the result of this collaboration is the "Medical Research Insights" projects, an application based on the SAP HANA and In-Memory Computing platform that provides end users fast and easy access to critical patient data and comparisons of patient profiles from various sources.
The project was honored by the White House for "empowering the patient, curing diseases and saving lives." Haug said SAP also helped a major U.S. oil firm ― Shell ― retool its IT systems
AppHaus in South Korea
With such confidence and acquired references, SAP is eyeing the Korean market as the company confirmed its plan to build a co-innovation center in Korea.
"We are focusing on the Korean market. We have no plan to open up our AppHaus other than Korea for the time being," said the executive.
SAP said the concept of its AppHaus in Korea will follow the concept seen in the Heidelberg office, meaning that it will have three core components.
Those things pursued by AppHaus in the German city ― a multidisciplinary team that brings members from different backgrounds and with unique skills and passions to work together.
An approach that is agile, scrum-based and highly-iterative is the foundation for this design thinking. An environment that fuels inspiration and encourages collaboration through the use of flexible furniture and creative materials is the last.
This format is expected to draw keen attention from foreign firms that have operations in South Korea as SAP will be the first to run this kind of center.
Officials say the project will push other foreign tech companies to announce similar projects because the Korean government has been pushing the so-called "creative economy" with big players and local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
"Simplify everything so you can do anything. This is not just a slogan but it's about a structural change in how to think and how to operate."