Challenge

Some of the world’s biggest companies have been built around well-established and scalable business models – and they have hold on to them ever since. For decades the name of the game was driving shareholder value through business optimization – making the company bigger, faster and more efficient. But the world is changing: New technologies, fickle customers, blurred category lines and an unpredictable competitive landscape are compressing the existing business model life cycle of most companies. To upskill ambitious employees and enable them to find tomorrow’s business models in a fast and validated way, the company was looking for an innovation partner that knows how to design profitable products and services that succeed in a digital world.

Approach

On a weekly basis up to 12 intrapreneurs from across the company were selected and invited to join the interactive session on corporate innovation. Through lively presentations, real-world case studies and authentic war stories, I provided participants with a deeper understanding of digital business models and innovation methods, and provided the practical tools for day-to-day work.    

To put their learnings into practice, every interdisciplinary team was challenged to design a proof-of-concept by the end of the sprint. Since the focus of the project is on the educational element, the solutions deliberately focused on incremental innovations that are close to the core of the company's business (e.g., a digital feature) rather than transformative solutions that would require a different project setup.