Finding new ways to use SAP technology
A typical Quest, rather than offering workshops in hotel conference rooms, brings participants face to face with people confronting difficult challenges. As we sit in people’s homes, tour their offices, or experience grim realities such as the waste dump in Mumbai, we hear about career choices, personal struggles, business obstacles and strategies for creating change. Not only are we exposed to different perspectives which spark our creativity, but we begin to see new connections between our work and its potential to serve a greater purpose. 
This is what happened to Andy Dey, head of SAP’s HANA development team in Bangalore. Dey had seen poverty-stricken areas before, during a childhood spent in India, “…but only from the outside. I never actually went into one.” When he visited a Mumbai slum during the week-long programme, he rethought his scepticism about the Quest, when his initial reaction had been “A quest for what? What would I do afterward?”
The answer started to take shape when he met a woman who had launched an organisation to improve literacy in the local slums. “The biggest thing driving her was passion,” says Andy. “She knew what she wanted to do. Most of us do what we need to do.” He was struck by her skill at recruiting mentors and leaders from among those who needed her help. “She was able to help them transform their lives.”
As he encountered social entrepreneurs for the first time, Andy was fascinated by how they managed to utilise the power of business while also addressing a social need. He also noticed that their issues were similar to the ones faced by SAP customers every day – questions like “How can you help me expand my business?” and “I’m having a supply chain problem.” Andy realised that SAP was in a position to help. “What is our biggest asset? It’s our knowledge in IT.”
On the Quest, Andy met leaders from Childline, India’s first toll-free helpline for street children. Working with a large network of partners throughout India, it has taken millions of calls and is keen to analyse its data to see which social issues arise most often. Up until now, Childline has not been able to map digital patterns often enough, but Andy’s team is helping it use HANA to work in real time. “This is something we do on a day-to-day basis,” he says, “so why not do for them?”
The ultimate Quest goal: seeing things differently
Again and again on the Quest, we noticed a change in our perspective. One participant was taken aback when a local woman whose life, marked by deep deprivation and markedly different from her own, bridged the gap between them by asking about her children. Others experienced the shock of seeing young boys dive into a toxic river in Mumbai, on the hunt for good luck coins thrown in by commuters. “The word ‘transformational’ almost seems like an understatement for my experience,” says Rohit Gupta, Head of SAP Custom Development at SAP Labs India. “By the end of the first day, I already realised how little I knew.”
Our participants met teachers who have given up successful careers to work in impoverished communities. They talked with social entrepreneurs who are making solar lights for rural areas and running a cooperative bank for women. They visited a chemical company that has integrated sustainability into every part of its operations, and has summed it up with the words “Serving society through science.”
Above all, they met leaders “from unconventional sources,” as one participant put it. On one visit, they went into the homes of Quest Fellows, who are given training by the Leaders’ Quest Fellowship to address issues such as access to water in their communities. Kamrunissa was one such trainee. Living in a slum with four children, she suffered abuse as a child, married at 14, and has endured poverty ever since. Despite this, she has beome a strong leader in the fight to eradicate violence against women. “When she smiled at me, I could see the place of truth and strength that she operates from in all that she does,” says Rachel Parikh, Director, Sustainability, who co-designed the Quest. “My commitment in my work is now to stay connected to that place within me.”
Other participants came away with equally strong feelings. They blogged and asked “What will it look like for us to serve society with our solutions?” They have started to create a local sustainability charter and they plan to use technology to empower social entrepreneurs. Above all, they are now committed to a mindset that has recast the ‘end’ of the Quest as being more of a beginning of something really potent.
As one participant put it: “My eyes have just opened.”