The Lisbon MBA Executive on Campus with Mr. Zeinal Bava

THE LISBON MBA EXECUTIVE ON CAMPUS WITH MR. ZEINAL BAVA The Lisbon MBA invited Mr. Zeinal Bava, CEO of Portugal Telecom, to lecture a 2-hour class to The Lisbon MBA students and alumni as part of their Executive on Campus initiative. This initiative aims to establish a channel where the students can benefit from the knowledge, experience and talent, as well as learn from the successes and failures from companies and senior managers.

The selected topic was “Innovation as a Critical Growth Driver” which is also at the core of PT´s strategy.

PT´s strategy focuses on Innovation, Execution and Internationalization. Given that the telecommunications sector is in constant transformation and PT is a company that is constantly trying to improve their customer experience, innovation is a key focus in order to achieve results and build a structural competitive advantage.

“If a company just focuses on price and product someone else will copy you overnight” said Mr. Bava.

Portugal has grown significantly in the rank of countries investing in innovation and PT is the Portuguese company with the largest investment in R&D and Innovation with a total value of 213 million EUR. However, there is still room for improvement and Portugal still has a low level of R&D spent relative to GDP, which is reflected in low levels of registered patents. Innovation in the telecommunications sector also has several benefits to other sectors such as healthcare and education.

Mr. Bava defends that people should foster innovation within companies and presented some common myths and best practices about this topic: - Innovation should not be relying on a single department and should include a joint participation of all employees in the innovation process.

- The sole purpose of innovation should not be to generate new products and services but also to improve processes and gain efficiencies on things that are already taking place.

- Some people think it is not possible to learn how to innovate but PT has put in a place several initiatives to teach their employees how to innovate.

- Innovation ideas should not be centrally generated but should come from the ground up and the people who are operating in the field.

- More seniority and experience does not translate into a greater ability to innovate and everyone should try and learn with younger colleagues.

When asked about how to balance innovation with the possibility of failure which is still a concept that is not well faced in Portugal, Mr. Bava answered that in order to be successful you can´t make everything right but just try and make less things wrong. He also stated there is a need for a cultural change in Portugal where people should risk more and use these experiences to learn.

Using the 3 T´s (Technology, Tolerance and Talent) theory of economic growth, Mr. Bava says that Portugal has technology and tolerance but needs more talent in addition to the scarcity of good ideas and good managers. This is one of the reasons that PT has a strong link with the education world and wants to attract, develop and retain the best talent.