good morning everyone thank you for coming out this early I appreciate that I'm sure you've been in all the lots of sessions you've been doing lots of things already so we really appreciate the effort to come out early early in the morning so I'm Tomas blood I it's I'm a enterprise strategist although I just took over the leadership of digital innovation for Europe Middle East and Africa and I'm not gonna say much today because I have with me Julia Rossi Rossi leads our innovation practice for Spain Italy and Portugal and I will leave you in her capable hands thank you so much thank you thank you guys for being here I'm very excited to be here today I'm responsible for the digital innovation program in the South Europe and I'm here today to share with you our Amazon innovate and all you can innovate like Amazon and in a modem when we talk about innovation we start with the customer and work backwards so this is the way we make sure we are building the right thing for our customers and of course when you innovate there are many different ways you can innovate you can start on concentrating on competitors you can start concentrating on a new technology or launching a new business model but in Hamilton we start with understanding what is the customer need and what would the light to the customer and then work backwards in understanding what is a solution that will really create a delightful customer experience so I hope this methodology will inspire you and you can use that in your company and we'll see also how we can do that but let me dive deep into what is the mission of Amazon Amazon mission is to be the hurt most customer centric company so as you can see this mission is really broad it doesn't say anything related to selling cloud selling ecommerce or selling books online it's not related to any geography any technology any particular industry the s this mission is broad it's also very specific because Amazon often the tiebreaking question of a decision is what is the best thing for our customers and you know that whenever organization grows and the complexity of decision increase the key point is really keeping that customer obsession when you scale it and in order to innovate in a distributed consistent and repetitive way this is the key because often you need to have a quick time-to-market you need to reduce the risk of failure and you need to do that about when you create ideas but also when you drive the execution of these ideas so how do we do in Amazon so leaders in Amazon use mechanism in order to make sure they drive this customer centric innovation approach not only to generate ideas but also to dry them on into the old execution and the old marker of all the mechanism is called the working backwards mechanism so where innovation begins we start with the customer and work backwards so working backwards is the customer centric approach they as created to and as developed as helped out to develop any single product any single service all the different products that you see in the market from Amazon and a debrief as well so as you can see it's really a customer centric approach that is used every part of the organization but when we say start with the customer and work backwards the concept is not really asking the customer what they want or being close to the customer but the concept is really to understand the customer need in order to be able to innovate on their behalf and when you want to do that you don't have to think dependently on the resources you have in a particular moment at the time you have in a particular moment what you think you know how to do or what you think it's even possible the concept is really trying to think big trying to understand what would delight your customer and then work backwards from there to understanding what what's the solution that you want to create so it's not about feasibility or capability in Amazon would like to call our early sage product minimum lovable products so something that would put a smile on on the face of your customer would have a surprise effect like a WoW moment for your customer that really creates a delightful customer experience and that has been the same over and over the years since 1997 when Jeff Bezos Sauceda mahjong comm and has been consistent over the years and I usually like to read this sentence because it's the core of the intubation approach of Amazon and it stated in the first letter to shareholder in 1997 but has been consistent and stated the game in 99 insert in 2016 letter to shareholder and it says that customer are always beautifully and wonderfully dissatisfied even if they report being happy and the business is great even when they don't know yet know it the customers don't want something more and your willingness to pursue these customer delights will really make you insist on the highest standard to really satisfy the customer and create amazing customer experience ISM so when you do that you really can open up to innovate in many different business liner so if you can see that that amazona was created and started in 1997 and then in 1998 we start selling CD and DVD from from selling books online and then we created Kindle video I'm Madonna the grocery shop Simon's on go Alexa so as you can see do you want to know all of these have in common it has been the consistent methodology that Esme does create all of these products and it has been consistent over the years all of these products were actually created applying the working backwards mechanism and none of the customer asked us can you please create an Alexa none of these so we're actually created from a specific request of a customer but we were able to understand the need and inventor on their behalf but Jeff Bezos says a good intention don't work what does it mean that sometime you know we ask our team to really try hard to really concentrate on their customer need so we get our team together you know we ask all of them to do a nice brainstorming and we ask the team really to concentrate on their customer need but in this way guys we are asking our team good intention we are not really asking for a change and our people already have good intention to concentrate on the customer we are not giving them tools so we are not giving them a structure in order to make sure they innovate in a consistent way so if good intentions don't work what works a structure works a structured approach to innovation and in Amazon we have created the structural approach in and we have organized it in these four main pillars culture mechanism architecture and organization and believe me that none of them work in isolation they were correlated with each other so we cannot have a great culture but then don't have mechanism to scale our innovation methodology and don't have an organization that empowers the leaders to innovate so let me go and dive deep on the culture for a few moments Amazon culture is based on 14 leadership principles these are really the core of how Amazon innovates our leaders leader and now we can keep this distributed customer obsession because actually the first leadership principle is customer obsession and if you see the level result is only the last leadership principle what does it mean that if you concentrate on your customer and you do everything right the result will come automatically if you really apply all the leadership principle and some of the of them you know my customer ask me why Julia there are 14 leadership principle that seems like quite a lot you know but the concept is that these leadership principles are guidelines for people really to be able to innovate in a free way for people really to understand when they can apply more for example bias for action or more insist on the highest standard so the concept is that leaders are multi-dimensional we need to make people really empower and use their superpowers in order to apply one leadership principle in one contest or another one and you can see there is a DNA there this leadership principle are really the DNA of the Amazonians we are hired based on leadership principle we are you know promoted based on the leadership principle and they are like a common language that we use everywhere so we use in Italy we use it in Fiat Zola we use it in Las Vegas Singapore every part of the organization because it makes like us understand what we shall apply in a particular contest so the help creates an and take fastest decision because if I say to my colleague Thomas you know let's apply most bias for action in in a project he would immediately understand what I mean or like let's apply more insist on the highest standard and in this way you create a common you know glue among the people so they are not just written in the wall but they are lived and breath by the amazonian sir so let me first concentrate on the invent and simplify it's one of the one of my favorite leadership principle but let me tell you a story who knows Kindle who has a Kindle can you raise your hand I'm glad so let me tell you a story when we invented Kindle you know we have understood that people who love reading want you to read and want to have access to their favorite book in a simple way everywhere they were in every time and in a simple a simple way so the main mission of the Kindle was books everywhere in the world in 60-second . it didn't say anything at the beginning on how we would achieve that and remember the one we launched Kindle we were living in the market in selling books online now so remember how you know the market could have perceived that in the context of you know maybe guys you are jeopardizing your main business line you know you're selling books online and now you are creating an ardor where people could actually download the book are you really sure you want to do that but the concept of inventing and simplifying its the concept of willingness to be misunderstood or risk to be misunderstood for a long period of time when you understand that there is a mission when you understand that is a customer need and you can play a role in satisfying the customer need and we were a software company maybe some of you remember the first version of the Kindle so we did not know how to build an ardor we had no capability but we wanted to play a role in satisfying the customer need so we started hiring people we starting understanding which competencies we could get how we could build an ad where so some of you might remember the first version of the Kindle I still do and is still in our main building in Seattle in the reception and and also the first one but all the 14 new version of the Kindle up until now that's the girl were developed based on the customer feedback what does it mean that the concept is we created this minimum lovable product so could we create the first version of the Kindle so we could get early enough market feedback and feedback from our customer because innovation is difficult the key part is really to be able to get the customer feedback as early as possible in order for you to tune it and arrive and achiever like the customer delight product that you want to create so the willingness to be misunderstood for a long period of time has also applied for AWS some of you remember at the beginning when we launched ws you know all of the market saying said that you know we should have concentrated on you know amazon.com and an e-commerce but we have understood that we could enable people with the technology and the innovation capability in order for them really to accelerate their innovation capability and that's why we created the AWS architecture in order to industrialize the concept of free and fast experimentation let me mention another leadership principle that is really close to my heart this is what we mean with bias for action because the many decision are reversible and speed matters in business but what do I mean with that the concept is the that sometime you know in order to take a decision in our company we really take a lot of time because we want to really understand and get all the data we need to be careful what we invent and we need to be careful what we launch you know we don't want to get the wrong product so none of us wants but in Amazon we teach leaders to take decision as soon as they have 70% of the data they wish to have because if they wait for 90% that's gonna be maybe too late they they might be too slow and this is what we mean with bias for action and when we innovate you know calculated risk taking is also very important so we need to find out how and when we can apply bias for action or in which circumstances we need to pause and think more deeply into what we want to do and that's why we have created a mental model of taking a decision that define decision in one-way or two-way doors so what does it mean so one-way door unlike that decision that are really important for the company they have important consequences and repairable consequences which is like opening a new data center or opening a new fulfillment center and that decision we shall take in a very careful way but there are some other decision that we call two-way door it's like we can walk out the door check what the market says and then if that works we scale it faster if it doesn't work we just come back so this type of decision have really irrelevant consequences repairable consequences and this is the concept some time when we want to launch a new product when we want to launch a new service let's get the MLP Donna and let's see the mark what the market says and get the feedback early enough and this is a way you can really achieve a great time to market but you know when you enable people to innovate you really foster this customer obsessed culture how do you give the structure that you that we were saying before and we do that applying the working backward process and in Amazon we do a peculiar way we don't usually use PowerPoint but we use you usually write press release frequently asked question and visuals and some of you say okay fine you know we all write press release we launch a product you know we write a product and then we go to the marketing department and we write a press release but this is a peculiar way in which we do in Amazon you know what many companies do is like the build the software the get it all working all perfectly fine then they throw it to the marketing department and say here's what we built write the press release for it but this concept is actually backward because you know maybe the marketing department would say this is not the product that our customer wants so the concept is like writing a press release before even starts writing any single line of code before even you know starting the developmental or the agile process having a moment in which you pose and you're really sure that you're building the right thing for your customers but how do you do that you know and this is the concept of we were saying that before empathizing with the customer understanding first of all who's your customer and many of you will have would be working in b2b companies many of you will work in b2c companies where you say okay I have many customers I mean everyone is my customer okay but who do you want to delight who is the target customer that you really want to target in order to improve their customer experience and where you want to play a role in with your company for them and this is how you can understand who's the customer and empathize with their circumstances empathize with their contest in Amazon we don't create static personas it's really we empathize with the contest their problem and really understanding like their life when we when we want to create a new product and when we create a product or we have an idea because we have understood that there is a customer problem we always ask ourself the five working backwards question and this is the structure I was mentioning before who is the customer what is the customer problem how do I know that it's a relevant customer problem and is the solution or the idea that I have in mind solving that problem or is just cool because each user is using artificial intelligence Big Data machine learning and everything is solving a customer problem will it be relevant so someone will get it will buy it and what is the customer experience so if I ask you what is the most important word in these five working backwards question what would you say its customer and it's also another important word that I like it's the it's the specificity on how you answer to this question because it's like who's the customer what is the customer problem try to dive deeper earring with another leadership principle on the problem where you can really play a role and you can take five minutes and you take five months in were answering this question and the concept of the press release really helped you going through these questions and really help you driving clarity of torture when you reply to this to this question because you know you can you can really have the answers but when you put them into writing and writing one single line of page one single sorry page answering this question that will really make the difference but let me explain you more what is the press release FAQ and visuals so a press release it's a one-page document that you write to responded to the five working backwards questions and then you write this document leaping into the future so you imagine in six months time eight months time when your customer will have the product in his or her hands what would he say how would she feel about the product you know and you write the press release based on that so you write the press release starting from a customer testimonial a customer quota that will really make you be in the shoes of your customers and everything will start from there you know that is how you reply to the five working backwards question and believe me that if you want to have all the five working back backwards question detailed in a page document only one page means you really have to have clear in your mind what you want to achieve because you know some time you write a six page document because maybe the clarity is still not there so the first draft of the press release will still be five pages and then refining and refining you get it to the one-page document that is a press release and then the FAQ so frequently asked questions are created based on the feedback that you get from sharing this press release ISM let me be more precise a press release in Amazon can be written by anyone but the concept is how much you revise the press release you circulate the sceles among your peers among your leaders and how much you can get feedback on your solution so it's not your solution but it's a team distributed innovation that we said before and based on that feedback you create so the frequently asked question and this feedback really give the strength of your solution it really makes you think in a different perspective of the of the solution so think about you know I brought a press release I pass it on to one of my team member and then she will start to reviewing the press release and she would ask Julia but have you thought how much does it cost oh yeah it cost five euro okay but are you sure what's the margin I mean what's the channel how do I bring it to the market so what's the customer support if that breaks how does it work so we don't create business model canvas but it's through the frequently asked question that you refine your thinking and your solution in order to have that really stronger and ethic you are like external type of question so a question that your customer would ask you or internal type of question so what's the supply chain how do I build this do I have the capability which technology does he use and when you do that you really have the solution quite strong at the end and then you have the visuals so the visuals are like the customer journey so as you see all of these three tools are like the tools of the mechanism that we were saying before so we have a structure that I work in backwards question how do you give people tools to apply this structure is the press release FAQ and visual to make sure that they build the concentrated on their customer needs and everything is based to understand the customer journey and revise it and read and discuss and debate and ask question so in the press release so there's also like a data a time and a city where you're going to launch that product and are really so people are really driving and discussing hard on understanding and on a time and a data but let me tell you more from the words of someone that you might have seen somewhere is the working backwards process optional it sounds great but it seems like a lot of work oh boy how do we begin well the working backwards process should not be optional unless you know a better way and and you shouldn't know a better way until you've tried the working backwards process several times the working backwards process really does work and and this particular thing here it sounds great but it seems like a lot of work done correctly the working backwards process is a huge amount of work but it saves you even more work later the working backwards process is not designed to be easy it's designed to save huge amounts of work on the back end and to make sure that we're actually building the right thing but so many companies do is they build they build this right to software that's a lot of work they get it all working and then they throw it over the wall of the marketing department so okay here's what we built right the press release for it that's that process is the one that's actually backwards I like this video from Jeff because it shows you few things first one this is an internal hole and you could see amazon.com so it's actually you know shows you how much it's an authentic experience on really how we have created every product and service so that Amazon is launched and it was mentioning you know that bias for action that I was mentioning before you know trying to build a new product and try to experiment so when you create a team of people oh they are enabled that you really you know want to innovate and you give them a structure you know you might be even overwhelmed by the number of ideas that you want to launch in the market with them working backwards kanima it's important to select which ideas are worth pursuing and when you pursue it we said let's get the customer feedback early enough but how do you do that and in Amazon this was what made us move from a monolithic approach to a micro service approach because and this is like the schema of the AWS architecture in micro services and you all know that the concept of micro services really enable you to experiment faster really enable you to see if a product you know gets a nice customer feedback so you can scale quickly if it's not you know totally aligned so you need to come back and change something but then you know you you can fail fast in this way and you can react really quickly because you don't have to change the older parts of the implementation but you can change that micro service and in that way you can really concentrate on what is right for your business and the AWS architecture is what you know enabled you to embrace this free and fast experimentation it's what enables you really to industry lies in your company this concept of free and fast experimentation so that you can really concentrate on your business rather than concentrating on technology and really make sure that your business is able to innovate and really be effective in the market and these are all the micro services but I won't go in in the details with that but you know and it's also with the AWS architecture it's also an example of the customer feedback you know 194 million deployments a year how we do that with the customer feedback as well so it's really as well an example of how much we have industrialized this concept of experimentation to enable you to innovate on the technology side and then you know how can we keep this approach when the company grows because it's easy to do that when you actually have a small company but how can we keep this concept of free and fast experimentation when the company grows and this is a customer-focused innovation approach and we do that with an organization approach that we call - pizza team and I'm Italian so when I heard it the first time - pizza team my concept was like it's a team of two people I mean like - pizza team so we can debate on the size of pizza and let's not go there because it's a topic close to my heart but the concept is really creating a team of seven to eight people that can be fed with no more than two pizza let's not go there again but the concept is creating like a small start-up in organization and the concept is that these people will actually owner the idea from the beginning of the idea up until the execution so if you organize your company with small start-up that own a project and this type of - pizza team like our multi-dimensional so you have people with different competences so you have an idea so you can embrace people from marketing from the business so it's not like throwing the ball from one team to another and they say you know that's not my responsibility but this team would actually starts from the idea generation to writing the press release to managing the FAQ and manage the go-to-market and the implementation of the solution so this is really a concept that is powerful in order to drive ownership in order to drive you know they centralize the authority to these people that really feels empowered to innovate and really feel like that product like their own baby really and when something is wrong about that product it really they really find it close to their heart in order to fix the problem for it or make sure that that problem doesn't occur on that product and this is how we hire people like this and as I was mentioning in this light Amazon hide builders and let them do bill and let them build the because the concept is you know the people that work for Amazon really are empowered because they they are part of these stupids a team they can really make things happen so it's not just creating ideas or concept but then driving that through the oil execution and you know in this way you can really as I said before experiment early and frequently and the people are get empowered with the leadership principle that I was saying before to apply these leadership principles and there is this concept also of the letter to shareholders that I was mentioning before the Jeff Bezos always writes in order to reinforce some of the leadership principle and make sure that everyone really feels you know the possibility and the freedom to propose a press release I was saying before the press release is not you know can be written by anyone in the organization and with the reviews you can get a to Pizza team assigned when you write a press release I give you some examples like AWS was written from was born from a press release written by Andy Jesse Andy Jesse maybe you heard this name before and that press release was actually revised the forty five times until we created AWS so everyone can write a press release Amazon Prime I was born from oppressively is Sutter drafted from a guy in the fulfillment center so it's this distributed experimentation model but when you do that you know you're also accepting the possibility of failing who remembers the fire phone now I see some of you smiling and and raising the hand who has a fire phone today someone is raising their hand I would like to invite this person on the stage but the concept is that the fire phone was actually one of the biggest failure and that we had in Amazon and actually one was one of the biggest error but it was a learning opportunity because when you really embrace the concept of free and fast experimentation you're really accepting the possibility of failing because you take the failing as a learning possibility from that what have we learned from the five phone you know the team that worked on the fire phone was actually moved to work on the Alexa because they had our dual competencies and also capability that could be used and reused we on a different product with a different scope and a different purpose on a different time but this is how you know it's the concept of learning from every every error and also you know the auction part that we had at the beginning of amazon.com you know we got the feedback that that mechanism wouldn't work for our customers and then we moved to the approach of the amazon.com and that is really the concept of accepting this this possibility of failing so when many customers ask me why Julia do you share this presentation of the culture of Amazon why you know are we are we saying this and then they say how can we apply to our you know company and what I say is that we based on the customer feedback as well we have created a program that is called the digital innovation program that that guy Thomas on the front road lead for amia and this digital innovation program is really give you the possibility to apply the four pillars of innovation to your specific business challenge in order for you to accelerate your innovation capability so helps you concentrate on your customer need help you apply the working backwards approach and try to build a press release the based on your company needs and your customer need and accelerates the execution capability building a real MLP and in this way you know Amazon really enabling the customers and an olive Aza to innovate a boat on the technical side and with the innovation mechanism and this program is actually like a free program that we offer like more of a partnership for some of our customers in order really to accelerate their innovation capability and the build phase it's done in many different ways and opportunities on the AWS platform in order to be able to build in to build it and test it and scale it when when it's seeded in the in the most fastest way and in addition to that of course we have training and certification on you know our TCO on sub productivity operation resiliency business agility and all the possibility that can enable your business in addition to the technical side and also the customer enablement so all the professional services that can that you can use to make sure that you can also build the solution that I was saying before we our prototype team that can alt doing that we have a huge ecosystem of partners with the capability on every single technology that can help you create the solution based on the AWS building blocks and all of this is really what would enable an idea to come to life and before you know maybe we can go on some debate and and discuss a little bit if you have some if you have some question the concept is guys it's up to you I mean you are the leaders who get to decide who get to choose to embrace a customer obsessed and a customer centric innovation and you can keep the scale and scope of a huge company but the heart and the spirit of a small one applying to pizza team organization using working backwards mechanism and really innovate and concentrate on your customer feedback thank you very much thanks a lot [Applause]