AT&T Wireless 2012 Annual Report Download - page 24

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AT&T Inc.
22
 With 120 patents to her name, Marian
Croak helps lead the innovation push within
AT&T. Meanwhile, Abhi Ingle spearheads
AT&T’s creation of an innovation “ecosystem.”
Together, they’re helping develop creative new
solutions to meet our customers’ needs and
grow our business:
How would you describe AT&T’s approach
to innovation?
ABHI “We’ve planted several seeds that have
taken root to transform our approach to
innovation — AT&T Foundry® innovation centers;
alliances with venture capital firms to hear ‘fast
pitches’ from startups with exciting new ideas;
and our internal innovation crowdsourcing
tool, The Innovation Pipeline (TIP), which lets
employees’ ideas move from presentation to
prototype in just a few months. Add the world-
class research at AT&T Labs, and we have the
right mix to drive innovation.
“And we match these great assets within AT&T
with capabilities outside our walls.”
So collaboration is an important part
of AT&T’s approach?
MARIAN “Absolutely … internally and externally.
We’re collaborating to develop amazing new
applications and services for our customers. And
we’re building cutting-edge tools to make it easy
for developers to integrate our technologies into
their apps.”
ABHI “We look across the entire ecosystem —
whether it’s researchers in AT&T Labs, innovation
coaches in AT&T Foundry®
, developers in a
garage or an employee in an AT&T retail store.
We engage all those points of view and creative
resources, and we pull it all together to accelerate
new solutions.”
What’s coming next?
MARIAN “With initiatives like Fast Pitch,
AT&T Foundry® and TIP, we now have proven
processes that can help us continue to innovate
in the tech arena to bring new solutions to our
customers. But we’ll apply our innovation
approach in other areas, too. So we can use TIP
to engage our employees to identify new cost-
saving opportunities in our business. Or challenge
developers to help us find ways to address the U.S.
education crisis. The best is yet to come.”
FUTURE FIRST
Clearing a path
for innovation
145,000+
AT&T employees participating in TIP
and generating 500 new ideas each month
New products or services
out of AT&T Foundry
since its inception
29