Absolut innovation strategy: getting outside the bottle in the digital age
After the McDonald’s startup , here is our second case study from the Break conference featuring Absolut, the global vodka brand. For Markus Wulff and his “Growth Team” in Stockholm, it’s all about innovation outside the bottle, and embarking on a discovery of new opportunities on the customer journey of vodka lovers. As in many […]
Coca-Cola Founders case study : an inspiring model of corporate innovation
“What if an entrepreneur is given the money, relationships and reach of a MNC to prove its business model?” We met Dave Lim, one of the entrepreneurs selected by Coca-Cola in November last year to participate in the their unique program of corporate innovation, the Coca-Cola Founders. Almost one year after the program started, let’s analyze […]
Corporate Venture Funding 101 with Summeet Jain from Intel Capital
Among the different ways a corporate, tech or non-tech, can catch up with the crazy pace of innovation startups is through corporate venture funding. Can any company turn into an investor? What should the size of investments from corporates to startups be? How long should the duration be? And finally, how should the different temporalities […]
McDonald's digital innovation strategy: building the restaurant of the future as a startup
With 35,000 restaurants in 121 countries, McDonald’s is not a so much a F&B outlet, it’s a machine, an army of operational excellence. It’s also a network of franchisees, which makes innovation a bit harder, as you can’t really design a new service or product and just push it to the network. During the […]
Lufthansa innovation hub and the travel space: a "startup within the company"
During the Break conference in Bali, we listened to then interviewed Katrin Zimmermann, from the Lufthansa Innovation Hub. Their work as a “startup within the company” can be summarized as follows: Digital travel apps are valued at $88bn, vs $6bn for a big airline on average There’s no or little loyalty, so Lufthansa need to […]
Places of Innovation – How tech giants, hackerspaces and corporates shape new places to foster innovation
The first Coworking Unconference of Asia was the opportunity for us to showcase part of the work we’ve done over the last 18 months around the world. One topic we have been exploring during our trips is the design of what we’ve called “Places of Innovation”. How do corporates create new places where their teams […]
Zappos corporate culture: innovating for employees, clients, and the ecosystem
We’ve extensively described what Zappos was doing with its “Downtown Project” in Las Vegas, pouring some $350m to revitalize a stranded part of the city. In this second episode, we’ll wrap-up our thoughts on Zappos corporate culture as we have been visiting its headquarters, ironically located since 2013 in the former town hall of Las […]
Target Accelerator Program: re-inventing retail in the digital age
Let’s continue to explore corporate innovation, with the Target Accelerator Program case study. We’ve met “both sides of the table” when visiting Bangalore’s top tech conference NASSCOM Product Conclave a few weeks ago, talking both with the teams of Target, and with Kyron, which operates their accelerator. For a quick introduction, Target is an American […]
A guided tour of Microsoft Ventures with Zack Weisfeld
From Bangalore to Beijing, through Tel-Aviv and London, Zack Weisfeld has been a serial entrepreneur and is now nurturing “the perfect global startup” as Head of Microsoft Ventures Europe & Global Accelerator Program. The program is what we call a corporate accelerator. It gives a big corporation – Microsoft here – an opportunity to support […]
[FutureCom Brazil] How to boost an emerging digital economy? Aim at SMEs!
From São Paulo, Futurecom was the occasion for David Dean, senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group, to present a report dealing with the factors accelerating or decelerating the digital economy. Intitulated “Greasing the Wheels of the Internet Economy”, it analyzes how countries can benefit from identifying obstacles to digital driven growth, with special emphasis […]
