Companies Need An Element Of Chaos If They Want To Innovate: Carsales’ Ajay Bhatia

Companies Need An Element Of Chaos If They Want To Innovate: Carsales’ Ajay Bhatia
John Bastick
By John Bastick



Too many businesses Stick to  process and don’t put enough trust in their people and it’s holding them back when it comes to innovation, particularly digital innovation.

That was the message from Carsales.com.au’s chief information and product officer Ajay Bhatia, who was speaking at the B&T-sponsored Daze of Disruption at Crown Casino in Melbourne this morning.

Bhatia actually started his presentation by showing photos of famous Australian sporting stars and successful Australian digital entrepreneurs. Unsurprisingly, most in the audience could name the likes of Shane Warne, Cathy Freeman and Sally Pearson but few got the names of the entrepreneurs whose businesses were worth billions and employed tens of thousands. “We just don’t value our innovators.

“Too many business just rely on process,” Bhatia told the audience. “Most businesses fear chaos but chaos is where the innovation comes from. Sure you don’t want total chaos but the right amount is good.

“And when you innovate, when you have that right level of chaos, then another benefit of that is it attracts good people to your business.

“The more process (you heap) on a business then the less talent you will have, less process means you will attract better talent,” he said.

Another innovation that Carsales.com.au had introduced, Bhatia revealed, was getting staff away from the day to day processes and in front of customers. That way, he said, staff could experience customers’ gripes and frustrations first-hand and come-up with solutions to solve them.

He said the business employed a number of immigrants to handle customer queries whose English wasn’t always the best. “But we’d prefer people and not machines responded to our customers. We’d far prefer they received a response – albeit it with a few spelling mistakes – and the problem was solved rather than just some nice email with perfect grammar but nothing happens.”

 

 

 

 




Latest News

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm
  • Media

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm

Sydney Comedy Festival 2024 is live and ready to rumble, showing the best of international and homegrown talent at a host of venues around town. As usual, it’s hot on the heels of its big sister, the giant that is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, picking up some acts as they continue on their own […]

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth
  • Advertising

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has announced the final epic lineup of local and global marketing powerhouses for RESET for Growth 2024. Lead image: Josh Faulks, chief executive officer, AANA  Back in 2000, a woman with no business experience opened her first juice bar in Adelaide. The idea was brilliantly simple: make healthy […]