Innovation, quality, profitability, and growth all depend on having strategy and execution fit together seamlessly, to operate at cross-purposes.

All businesses are talking about sustainability now; sustainable capitalism is not an oxymoron, and companies can pursue both profit and purpose. Consciousness and sensibility around sustainability is clearly changing, not only within companies but also with individuals and society as a whole.

To accommodate this shift in focus and evolving strategies, a disruptive and innovative platform is designed to build multiple sources of capital beyond the financial and economic models. A platform that believes human, social and natural capital is part and parcel to the success of businesses of the future, and viable to the future of our planet and people.

Corporations have to partner with startups to bring innovation into the company from the outside

True innovation at major organizations is difficult, especially if corporations are primarily focused on protecting their existing business interests. As a result, corporate-backed platforms are getting more traction compared to “traditional” programs; brands are adding meaningful advantages to the startups, in the form of technology, market access, validation, and mentorship and expertise, and capital. 

As for the startups, they get access to the brands’ vast resources without selling out to them. This type of access is invaluable to early stage teams.

Corporate innovation is also possible by intrapreneurs interacting with entrepreneurs as part of a hybrid approach, and a corporate backed platform helps facilitate this strategy.

Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs Interaction

Intrapreneurs are people who, despite being employees, behave, and think, in many ways like entrepreneurs. Intrapreneurship is the practice of a corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation approaches, as well as the reward and motivational techniques, just as in entrepreneurship. They are also referred to as ‘Disrupt-It-Yourselfers.’

Intrapreneurs’ interaction with entrepreneurs (see “Intrapreneurship“) provide the mechanisms to grow initiatives from idea to execution and help intrapreneurs inside and across their organizations. Innovation platform helps facilitate that interaction.

No company is immune to disruption

The startup ecosystem is no exception. Even the venture capital industry itself has begun to resemble markets that investors themselves are looking to disrupt. And then there is corporate venture capital, offering the most direct path to strategic and financial rewards from new business models, emerging technologies and disruptive innovation, driving enterprise transformation and growth. (see “Why CVC?“)

In recent years, corporations have increasingly invested into early-stage businesses and start-ups, as they attempt to gain insight into disruptive technologies and start-up ecosystems worldwide.

Scouting for promising startups

For our corporate partners and investors, the innovation platform also acts as a vehicle to scout for promising startups.

These startups will not be just valuable enterprises, but they will threaten and disrupt the very corporations currently focusing exclusively on cost management, rather than forward-thinking companies finding unique opportunities to invest in the future.

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