Deep tech, business roots help me run Juniper: Rami Rahim: Page 2 of 2

DNA: As the new head of products and innovation, the role you took over from Rahim, what is your priority going forward, and how will you ensure that Juniper’s innovation agenda will continue to flourish?
 
Davidson (pic): Of course, every leader has his or her own way of doing things, but from a strategic perspective, there is no need to pivot and we will continue to execute on the strategy Rami [Rahim] and our senior leadership team have already crafted going forward.
 
As far as innovation is concerned, we had been experimenting with a concept of ‘10% time,’ where we encourage our engineers to spend 10% of their time on new ideas and innovation projects.
 
We started this in our switching division and it has now filtered down to our security and router division in the past year.
 
For this, there are four basic rules to follow. The rule is that the 10% time initiative is an opt-in programme, where engineers must want to participate in this.
 
The second rule is that the engineers must work on something related to our core business, which is networking.
 
Thirdly, there must be proper documentation – engineers must write down everything they do on an internal blog and/ or wiki, so that their knowledge can be shared and improved on if possible.
 
Lastly, they must share their work and show a working code of their work to their peers at one of two innovation days that we hold every half-yearly or so.
 
By doing this consistently, we hope the new ideas will be made into actual products in time to come.
 
DNA: How does Juniper manage its research, development and innovation strategies?
 
Davidson: Every year, we have a session – typically in spring – where we review our strategies, and we look at things at things in terms of our key functionally areas: Core, edge, access and aggregation, data centre and campus environment.
 
And inside those five domain areas, we look at routing, switching and security, and anything else that our customers need from us to complete our solution areas. That’s the top-down strategy.
 
But there is also a bottom-up strategy, and that happens on a weekly basis. I run a four-hour weekly meeting with my team participating, together with experts in the company, and … we make day-to-day decisions.
 
DNA: Co-creation is a something that’s part of Juniper’s culture. How do you plan to further push this envelope as you come into this lead innovation role? What are your thoughts?
 
Davidson: We could put 20 people in the room and talk about what to build. But if we didn’t talk to customers, we wouldn’t know what to build within two months.
 
You have to be intimately involved with your customer and what their challenges are. [If] you create a relationship in a business and you believe you can help them, they would spend their most precious asset – that is time – explaining what their problems are with you.
 
This is very important for us as our customers trust us enough to help them, and are willing to spend time with us to explain what their problems are. This is the enviable position Juniper is in.

DNA: Do you plan to personally come out to Asia to listen and hold more discussions with your customers?
 
Davidson: In the past, I typically made three trips to Asia and I’d imagine that this will go on. So once I get my ‘C-legs’ as far as understanding all the broader components of the business, and I am ensured that I can effectively represent the entire organisation, I’ll absolutely be spending time in all geographies.

Edwin Yapp reports from Juniper Networks Innovation Showcase in Sunnyvale, California, at the kind invitation Juniper Networks Inc. All editorials are independent.
 
 
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