How do you drive innovation in the corporate world that typically has layers of management, governance and processes?
Management and processes exist to ensure accountability and that you can deliver the right products and services to customers at the scale and quality they demand. However, all too often these checks and balances come at the cost of innovation, creativity and agility.
So the question is, how can you remain agile and innovative while trying to deliver every time in a consistent way?
How to innovate
One way is to buy in innovation. This comes at a high price and can make companies internally focused on integration issues. You also need to make some pretty firm bets on targets and make sure to get the acquisition right first time.
We believe that another way is to reach out to fluid and dynamic startups that you can work with collaboratively and at pace and over the past six weeks this is exactly what we have done.
Through the EY Startup Challenge, we have worked closely with seven startups in the same room, along with a range of our clients to try to better understand the data privacy issues surrounding the “Right to be Forgotten”. It has been a tremendous learning experience and we are looking forward to working with the winner, Sedicii, as well as the other startups that took part in the challenge.
The value of collaboration
Throughout this programme we have looked to bring together the startups with larger companies to address this business problem of tomorrow. With a combination of EY, our clients, experienced entrepreneurs and Level39, we have mentored and coached the startups to guide them in the development of their products and businesses.
We have found working with so many passionate and energetic entrepreneurs both enjoyable and challenging. But most of all, we have found it inspiring.
Personally I have seen first-hand the value startups can bring to larger businesses. Their potential to revolutionise the ways in which we operate today and the advantages their agility and ingenuity can deliver.
We are already seeing the results of the past six weeks of hard work, with several proofs of concept and pilot opportunities for the startups with our clients as well as ourselves, which confirms my earlier statement that we can both learn and benefit from each other.
The beginning of the journey
For EY, the EY Startup Challenge represents a new way of working and a new way of addressing business problems. We began with the belief that this new way might be able to facilitate real change to how we work and live.
I believe these six weeks actually marks the beginning of that journey, as we will continue to support the startups and our clients over the coming months.
The real challenge is to think about how your company operates today and whether your organisation suffers from the side effects of what makes it strong. I urge you to challenge yourself to identify what you can do about that and whether you can solve it individually or as part of a wider collaborative environment
Rob Walker is head of the Customer practive within EY in the UK, where he advises clients in attracting, retaining and growing profitable end-consumer relationships. He has worked in the US, Switzerland and through the UK serving some of EY’s largest global technology and telecommunications clients