To become an intelligent enterprise in our increasingly digitized and rapidly evolving world, it is crucial to foster an engaged workforce that prioritizes innovation and agility. Employers foresee skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, flexibility, and active learning increasing in demand moving forward, according to the World Economic Forum’s recent Future of Jobs Report.

SAP is committed to setting individuals and teams up for success by creating opportunities to develop and hone new capabilities and ways of thinking. As part of this mission, we’ve expanded SAP Innovate to Win, a service designed to help customers get enabled on innovation frameworks and mindsets and apply these to build an internal culture around innovative and agility.

Empowering New Ways of Thinking

Available for companies of all sizes and from all industries, SAP Innovate to Win is an innovation enablement and coaching service that helps companies to tackle their individual business challenges. We piloted the program in the Middle East and North Africa region, and have now expanded to support enterprises around the globe with virtual, in-person, and hybrid format options.

The customized service enables teams within organizations to adopt Design Thinking — defined by The HPI School of Design Thinking (HPI D-School) as a human-centered, iterative, team-based mindset that leads to breakthrough innovations — and to build digital prototypes using SAP technologies. It also uniquely includes Business Model Innovation, Blue Ocean strategy, positive psychology, and creative coaching.

The standard program is delivered in seven different modules over the course of six weeks. With an emphasis on learning by doing, users complete field work in between each module to apply their learnings. This culminates in the final module when they then pitch the concepts they’ve developed to be utilized in real-world situations. SAP also creates a “maturity assessment,” or checklist, to help teams stay on track to achieve their objectives.

Supporting IT and Business Professionals  

SAP Innovate to Win is also designed for different types of professionals. First, the programming can be geared to people specializing in IT who want to collaborate more efficiently with the business side of an organization. With SAP Innovate to Win, IT professionals are better equipped to communicate with different kinds of teams and move from conversations centered on tech requirements to those focused on outcomes.

On the other hand, business professionals can leverage SAP Innovate to Win to build digital skills and IT-inspired mindsets. In doing so, both business and IT teams can speak the same language to foster an innovation culture across the broader company.

Propelling Future Success

As the Harvard Business Review described, to achieve learning goals, there is now a greater focus on developing growth mindsets and capabilities, rather than role-specific training. With the coaching from SAP Innovate to Win, teams are prepared — and empowered — to creatively explore solutions to unique business challenges that arise down the line.

We continue to see customers benefit from a personalized SAP Innovate to Win curriculum. Vicky Hasioti, SAP Innovate to Win program director, noted: “Through SAP Innovate to Win, we have already supported our customers to create more than 250 low-fidelity prototypes for new solutions and road maps in an effort to solve business challenges and improve their companies’ business models.”

In one example, in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Future Foundation utilized SAP Innovate to Win in a series of workshops. Yaqoob Al-Zaabi from the Strategy Department at Dubai Future Foundation said, “It’s been a surprisingly great experience! It really helped me think in ways that I have never thought before. It also gave me a sense of self-confidence to express myself and give feedback. The content was very clear and everything had a practical aspect and purpose which gave me actionable skills that I can take with me into my job.”

With the expansion of SAP Innovate to Win, SAP will support more customers around the world in their journeys to cultivate thriving innovation cultures that ultimately generate greater value for stakeholders in the future.

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