17/01/2011 , Innovation guru Alf Rehn

OpusCapita has stepped outside of its comfort zone

 

Rehn, 38, holds the Chair of Management and Organisation at Finland's Åbo Akademi University. He has taught at universities all over the world, worked with the world's biggest companies and is known for his unorthodox approaches. He lives in Finland and in Denmark.

Rehn addressed the members of the OpusCapita Leader's Forum in Helsinki on 14 December 2010:

"Creativity is usually considered a fluffy bunny, which is all nice and cuddly. But it should actually be provocative and cause friction in an organisation. Don't let your competencies hold you back and prevent you from seeing new opportunities," he pointed out. "Let your brain work on new ideas and don't get stuck on the first lazy ones. Ask difficult questions and challenge the present ways of doing things. That's where renewal comes from."

Rehn conveniently came up with a good example to illustrate this right on the spot: "I noticed that OpusCapita had built its new software products on Microsoft's Silverlight game platform. This shows that the company managed to find an area that others had not yet looked at and broke the rules," he said.

He also named Carlsberg, the famous Danish beer company, which came up with the idea of making cider as well as beer. The opposition in-house was strong, but the customers loved the product, and now Carlsberg's cider is the market leader with a huge market share in Denmark. Another example of a company which stepped outside of its comfort zone was L'Oreal, which launched a successful skin care range for men. Nobody had dared to suggest such a bold idea earlier - perhaps out of fear of being laughed at.

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