SM: A little background. When I first heard of Tom’s new book, Smart-sourcing, I was so intrigued by its title that I got myself a copy. I realised that during the time he had been writing the book, we had been building Ideafarms’s business on similar lines in a totally different part of the world! I wrote to Tom and we set up a call; before I knew it we had arranged to meet in his office. Since we had no particular agenda, we got to share insights. We ended up talking about Ideafarms, Tom’s future initiatives and about innovation as a core competency.

Your thoughts on Innovation.

SM: In my opinion, what companies really do in terms of innovation is problem solving or incremental innovation. That’s clearly a bottom-up approach and at best a tactic. I’d like to believe that looking at innovation - and especially so in the larger business context - at the strategic level, will provide a different value in that it will be radical, useful and sustainable. It’s not problem solving but fresh thinking - using concepts of disruption and contextual relevance - that should become the cornerstones for growth through innovation.

Is innovation a prerequisite for Smart-sourcing?

SM: Smart-sourcing’s promised value is through building trust-based partnerships so that the culture of innovation pervades through every part of the organization. In defining Smart-sourcing, Tom has emphasised the need for businesses to innovate, not only in their areas of core competency but also in the non-core areas of the business. In his words Smart-sourcing relationships must be “architected the way that the partner would actually operate as an insider and tightly integrate their services into the core processes of the organization”

Any possibility of Ideafarms and Tom working together?

SM: Sure! But where we’re at today is in trying to explore whether we can co-innovate together in some areas of mutual interest. I think we’re both very keen to find opportunities to work together.

Do you see Smart-sourcing having a similar effect as the outsourcing boom?

SM: No, not at all. Smart-sourcing is based on partnerships and not on head count. You will need a mix of people - thinkers, functional experts and leaders – committed in a different way. Metaphorically speaking, the outsourcing model is a wide-bottomed, squat triangle. Smart-sourcing it’s like an equilateral triangle. If you can imagine what it would take to scale an equilateral triangle on all sides, we’d be in a better position to understand the power of Smart-sourcing to transform the very physics of Business as we know today.

You are an Industrial designer. Do you think you can bring your learning from Industrial Design into IT or to help with innovation?

SM: In effect, that’s exactly what we have done. Design thinking leads our IT vision. Tom confirmed this as being our biggest differentiator, “Ideafarms brings Industrial Design to IT”.