On the afternoon of March 24th, the second session of the 2012 Dairy Farm Seminars successfully completed on 3rd floor of Ip Po Ting Hall, Lingnan (University) College, Sun Yat-sen University. Mr. Thomas Lam, enterprise and executive coach, guest professor of NAEA and former Vice Chairman of Cisco Greater China Operations and President of China Operations, Cisco Systems, Inc., delivered a wonderful speech about how to start up enterprise innovation in the rapidly changing world, which has provided the MBA candidates new perspective and approach to innovation in considering the development of enterprises.

Ms. Yvonne HU chaired the DFS session

Ms. Yvonne HU chaired the DFS session

Mr. Thomas Lam opened speech with interaction

Thomas’ unique insights in business management are the fruitful results of his rich experience, achievements and learning spirit. He believes that innovation is key to the enterprise’s survival, and companies succeed because they know how to take advantage of innovation to strengthen their competiveness and thus manage to lead the trends of times. Therefore, in his opinion, the ability to innovate and the competency in managing innovation are the valuable knowledge and wisdom essential to the business world nowadays. It is suggested by Thomas that successful innovation must have a clear differentiation, accurate assessment of the market cycle and align with its own business architecture. He has strengthened three important aspects during the lecture, they are: (1) Two fundamental models, namely Complex Systems Model and Volume-operations Model; (2) Managing innovation in such dimensions as product, platform, marketing, integration, value engineering, etc; (3) To mange inertia through realizing innovation recycle in the relationship between Core and Context. Another important concept – Institutionalize - has also been maintained throughout his speech, for only via institutionalization can the innovative approaches be ultimately carried out, whether during the stages of making strategies, planning or execution.

The seminar was declared a success and earned high appreciation from the attendees. At the end of the lecture, some MBA candidates stayed and had in-depth communication with Thomas.