New Technology defines the F1 Races of Future

An exciting weekend of Formula One racing comes to India for the 3^rd time with many a drivers and race officials cheering interest in racing in India, amidst disappointment of Buddh International Circuit falling of the grid in 2014 – but that’s what F1 excitement is all about – big money, glamour, speed and controversy

One thing that has fundamentally changed in racing is the infusion of technology beyond the car engine and mechanicals. Wander around the pits at a Formula One car race and you're as likely to bump into an iPad armored scientist or a laptop-wielding engineer as much as a mechanic with an advanced spanner

Each fraction of a second is important in every race and can make or mar the performance of car and the driver. Insight into elements of track, machine performance and driver reflexes offer competitive advantage, which teams cannot afford to miss. The management, race engineers and strategists sit during the race and make important decisions regarding pit stops and strategy.

The pit wall is connected to the garage in order to receive telemetry, strategy, timing feeds as well as intercom communications with the garage, race control and even the operations room in the UK. Teams always want to analyze more data …quicker!  During a Grand Prix decisions have to be made which can affect the performance of the cars and ultimately the result of the race. As they are racing they cannot afford to wait before making decisions. Therefore being able to analyze more data (both live and historical) in real time will help the team make more informed decisions quicker.

The latest is the use of in-memory computing platform to analyze the vast amounts of sensor data faster (Each car has over 200 or these …Phew!). The team will warehouse data so that they will be able to predict and model race situations for a smarter race strategy.
This real-time analysis of car sensor data can be run against both historical data and predictive models, helping the team to make immediate proactive corrections, avoid costly, dangerous incidents and win the race. With instant analysis of what is happening to the car while the race is on, the driver and engineers can work together to ensure a winning result.

Get Ready! Technology will be the new force on the race track that is currently reshaping the sports industry. 

Think, Innovate, Create & Disrupt with "Design Thinking"

Ever wondered why some brands go on to become icons while most others never make the journey from “Good” to “Great”?  If you take a close look at the most successful brands across categories, you will spot a common character – it’s called Empathy – empathy for the consumer or the end user of the product or service. You won’t necessarily find brands with maximum number of “features” at the top. In that list, you are more likely to see brands that addressed “real” consumer needs better than the others.

The early 2000’s saw the launch of a slew of tiny portable music players. Most came from the most reputed companies around. Some boasted of the smallest, slimmest form factor, some had the coolest colors while others offered great audio fidelity. But no one addressed a very critical and very real need of the consumer - When you were at song number 300, going back to song number 21 was a big pain as the songs were organized in random disarray !

And then something happened which disrupted the entire portable music player market. Along came the iPod. The makers of the iPoD had focused on that one real need and figured out a way to help keep the music cleanly categorized. They introduced the intuitive track pad which revolutionized and simplified the way users accessed music. They put their music on their fingertips and allowed them organize it the way they wanted. The iPod was the simplest and the most intelligent solution to a seemingly unfathomable challenge thus far !

So how did they figure it all out?

In a culture, where a bunch of insiders unilaterally decided what they believed customers' needed and created products based on that, this company brought the human factor back to the table. They created a culture of getting into the shoes of the users of their products and made that the blueprint of the final product.

This philosophy of keeping the end user at the centre of the process when finding solutions, has come to be known as Design Thinking. The origins of Design Thinking can be traced to Stanford university and it was later adopted and popularized by a design consulting firm called IDEO. In recent times, it has found widespread adoption as organizations are using the methodology, not just for designing better products, but also for solving a wide range of challenges – from business strategy, supply chain systems and retail to social engineering and even town planning !

 Since 2007, SAP has been at the forefront of the Design Thinking revolution when its co-founder, Hasso Plattner hired thirty-five design thinkers to be part of SAP’s strategy team. Design Thinking has since been used to reshape SAP and has become a strategic priority leading to to the creation of two centers of excellence, namely the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany and the D-School at Stanford, which are now globally recognized as the best centers of their kind.

SAP not only imbibed the values of Design Thinking, its is taking it to their customer organizations in India, helping them adopt this revolutionary methodology to find simple, creative solutions to their most critical  challenges.

As part of this initiative, we conducted a Design Thinking workshop at New Delhi on September 18, on the sidelines of The Futurist CMO 2013 Conference. This workshop was attended by Chief Marketing officers and senior marketing leaders from 18 leading companies. This engaging two hour workshop exposed them to the methodology and principles of Design Thinking and feedback received was overwhelming.

The next in the series of these workshops is scheduled at Mumbai as part of the World Brand Congress 2013 event. For more details please follow the link below and feel free to join us for an exciting session of Design Thinking for marketers.

World Brand Congress 2013

http://www.worldbrandcongress.com/

21-23 October, 2013

The Taj Landsend, Mumbai

Bye for now and keep watching this space for more !