Mission: Innovation

No introduction is really necessary the final episode of season 2 of Mission: Innovation... I couldn’t be happier to be ending on such a powerful note. I met Ziad Ahmed whilst hosting a panel on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Procurement. It’s a subject that’s close to my heart and has become all the more so with the Black Lives Matter Movement this year. But there is no person more passionate about DE&I than Ziad. When we spoke back in September he reminded that considering issues like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not just a good thing for businesses to do, it is, quite simply, the right thing to do. So, I knew I wanted to host Ziad on the show and especially, to pick his brain about the invisible strings between DE&I and Innovation. 

Earlier in this season, I spoke to Timm Urschinger, CEO of LiveSciences, who introduced me to the idea of self-organisation and how they can empower project teams to deliver impactful innovation. Today, I'm talking to one of LiveScience's clients, Alain Bindels from Roche. As the Head of Innovation Facilitation and Digitalisation at Roche, he is responsible for building innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities within the company. We talk about the cultural transformation that Roche is undergoing, and what some of the biggest principles are that he's turned to deliver on their ambitions to encourage entrepreneurial behaviour. We discuss the challenges they face, and how Alain is overcoming them to help the pharmaceutical giants respond to the need to innovate faster and more successfully. What We CoverWhy turning to entrepreneurialism and innovation requires a strong cultural transformationHow entrepreneurial behaviour is encouraged at RocheThe challenges and solutions to shifting the corporate culture at Roche  

Constantly innovating products to meet the needs of consumers is a challenge in and of itself. But what happens when you add in the layer of developing products and solutions that are sustainable too?Tackling this challenge is CPG giant Unilever. They've set some ambitious sustainability targets, like halving their environmental footprint by 2030. Today, I sit down with Marika Lindstrom, VP of Packaging at Unilever. We talk about how the company is finding ways to balance innovating for consumers whilst meeting their sustainability goals, and what advice she'd give to leaders who have similar ambitions to improve their impact on the environment.Key Learnings and Takeaways: Sustainability alone cannot drive innovation; it needs to be conducted in a way that exceeds clients' needs and expectations. Innovation needs a critical mass to succeed, so innovating with sustainability in mind requires a smart approach. External pressure, like a country's legislation or the public's opinion can be an ally for innovation. Unilever's Partnership with Purpose program offers a solution that makes both them and their suppliers grow.   Resources: UnileverConnect with Marika at Linkedin Our sponsor LiveSciences 

Nobody innovates in a vacuum. Behind the scenes, you’ll find companies collaborating with Universities, startups, NGOs, regulatory bodies and even competitors. But, we seldom pay attention to how these networks are facilitated. Often, these are engineered through a collaboration between local enterprise and local government. Today, we're talking to Rachel Davis, director of Warwick Enterprise at the University of Warwick. In this role, she works with multiple organisations across Coventry to give entrepreneurs support and access to a network that might help them grow their ideas into compelling business models. We talk about what entrepreneurial networks do and why they’re important and what some of the challenges are to running a successful one.   

Amazon, Spotify, the Apple App Store and, of course, Uber are all great examples of platform ecosystems. They’ve transformed the way some pretty traditional industries operate and that’s definitely something that can be said for our guest today, Skhona Khumalo. With his app, Kwela, he's creating more visibility and accessibility to South Africa’s informal public transport system that is used by the majority of commuters in the country. It might sound like just another Citymapper but the challenges are far greater where this mode of public transport has been operating as a closed system, raising problems around safety, security, general efficiency and usability. Kwela is taking these challenges on in a way that has required building a robust ecosystem. We talk to Skhona about where they started, how they’re overcoming their biggest hurdles and what the future of Kwela looks like. 

Something that frequently comes up in conversations about innovation is the necessity of failure. It’s a popular subject, and an oft-cited example of failure in the face of innovation is James Dyson’s 5,127 prototypes of the vacuum.If we’re all prepared to accept that failure is part of the innovation journey, why is it so hard to create the psychological safety required for innovation teams to thrive? Paresh Modi, Group Head of Business Development and Innovation at Vodafone, talks about what celebrating failure can look like, why it’s so hard to do and what the shift is that leaders are making towards creating safe space for failure. What is Covered How leaders can approach the concept of celebrating failure The difficulties with creating a safe space for failureInnovation through failure and creating a culture around it

A lot of us use Agile methodologies without realising that’s what they are. But big corporates are making a big push towards adopting Agile ways of working. A lot of this has to do with wanting to deliver projects sooner and, just generally, adopting an entrepreneurial mindset. But, what can Agile really do for innovation? And where are its limits? In this episode, Bontle Senne, Executive Director of Transformation at Virgin Media, talks about what Agile is and isn’t, what corporations should be thinking about when it comes to consumer centricity, and what it really means to drive impact through Agile ways of working.  She’s responsible for agile transformation and future-ing, which is Virgin Media's work to modernise the organisation through design thinking and Google design sprints.What is Covered: The most common misconceptions of Agile methodology, and what it really isHow the notion of consumer diversity shifts from identity to lived experienceHow to measure the impact of Agile methodology

Daniel Rukare, is a professor of Practise at Hult Business School and a leading consultant working with TNT, FedEx and DHL. Alongside his interests in innovation in uncertain times and developing disruptive business models, he works in future-proofing for business. But, is “future-proofing” just another business buzzword? We talk about what future-proofing means and how some of today’s leading businesses are overcoming challenges associated with transitioning their core business. What is Covered:What future-proofing means in the context of business and innovationThe biggest challenges that companies face when trying to future-proof their business modelsExamples of the companies that have had success in future-proofing

We all know that innovating is no easy feat. There are multiple reasons why companies fail at becoming strong innovators. One of the most common problems? Innovation teams aren’t empowered to deliver real impact. What Is Covered:Why many teams are struggling with delivering impact with innovationDecision-making and leadership in self-organising teamsHow to drive innovation with self-organisation within a company while remaining accountable for the resultsResources:Life Sciences www.livesciences.com

The fashion industry is coming under increasing scrutiny for its environmentally unfriendly practices and there's no doubt about it that fast fashion needs an overhaul.Nitin Kapoor is on a mission to solve the problems that the garment industry is facing. Through his platform, TexTech, he's cutting costs by making on-demand garment production simpler and more accessible. His company IBA is the top cross-border e-commerce company in India by addressing issues around overproduction at the source. I wanted to sit down with him to understand the interplay between fashion, technology, and the innovative ways they're combining to move towards sustainable production.Resources:- Indian Beautiful Art https://indianbeautifulart.com/- Connect with Nitin Kapoor https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitinkapoorjustintime/- Our sponsor LiveSciences https://livesciences.com/ 

There’s a mutually dependent relationship between money and innovation. If you’re doing it right, innovation should lead to an increase in wealth. And you also need money to be able to make your innovative ideas work. But, there’s a lot more under the surface in terms of how investing and wealth creation impacts innovation and how innovation impacts our behaviours around investing. We only need to look at the world of startups, Venture Capital and innovation hubs like Silicon Valley to start understanding the interplay. Key Learnings and TakeawaysNew technology brings not only new understanding of money, but also new sources of fundingBlockchain technology can help millions of people, women especially, obtain legal identity, access to learning and access to fundingThere is a cyclical effect where innovating the world of funding through innovative assets powers new innovation, which in turn impacts the way we utilise those assetsResources:The State of Women https://thestateofwomen.com/ Women Investing in Women Digital https://www.facebook.com/WomenInvesting/ Connect with Anu Bhardwaj https://www.linkedin.com/in/anu-bhardwaj-1726b41b/ KaiOS https://www.kaiostech.com/ Novi Digital Wallet https://www.novi.com/Our sponsor LiveSciences https://livesciences.com/

Before COVID-19 and lockdown, most organisations would run big workshop-style events for brainstorming sessions. The necessity for this kind of work hasn't stopped in lockdown, but it's not as simple as taking what we did in a workshop and doing it online (we've all sat in online sessions where everyone sits on mute and no one wants to contribute). Today, I’m chatting with Emily Elrod. She’s an experienced corporate consultant and entrepreneur with a demonstrated history of empowering people to live healthy, happy and purposeful lives in high stress environments.  She helps leaders to engineer environments for people to show up, contribute, collaborate and get things done together.Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:Connect with Emily Elrod on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyelrod/ Workzbe: https://www.workzbe.com/Mentimeter: https://www.mentimeter.com/  Our sponsor: https://livesciences.com/ 

Niosha Kayhani is the Director of Innovation at Cubic Corporation, and he currently holds nine patents. So not only is he an innovation leader, but he's a Certified Innovation Practitioner. Cubic is a technology driven, market leading provider of integrated solutions that increase situational understanding for transportation, defence, C4ISR and training.What Is Covered:- How Cubic innovates in collaboration with external partners like Apple, Google, Visa, MasterCard or Moovit.- The challenges of tying innovation into the company’s overall business strategy, operations and purpose.- How Cubic’s Innovation Social System works to bring better products and results for the company.Key Learnings and Takeaways:- Cubic’s innovation strategy focuses on three key priorities: developing rapid pursuits, new business incubation, and developing integrators - the people that help power Cubic’s Innovation Social System.- Innovation Social System is an efficient, closed loop system that enables Cubic to rapidly transform big ideas into differentiated, user centric solutions that solve the customer's most difficult problems, and generates new revenue streams.- It can be challenging for organisations to measure the success of innovation because of the lack of tangible data to prove the value of the investment, but even a failure provides return in itself.  

 Patricia Miller is a Managing Director at Accenture. She has been responsible for harnessing the full transformative power of digital technologies, automation and analytics in procurement, with the aim of better aligning procurement teams to the business and extended value proposition, and improving user experiences for the business, suppliers and the Accenture ecosystem. She coordinates the right processes, operating model and skills to drive true transformation in procurement. We talk about her experience in this role and how she seen data power procurement to build stronger relationships which lead to better innovation. Links and Resources Mentioned In This Episode:Accenture https://www.accenture.com/ Connect with Patricia Miller https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-miller-36a3633/Our sponsor LIVEsciences: https://livesciences.com/  

There's no doubt that the digitalisation of everything we do has led to wider and more connected networks... So what's the role that digital plays in the evolution of ecoystems?Helping me to answer this is Carla Lynn, a communications specialist with over 7 years experience in creating digital communication strategies that specifically look at the information flow within an organisation. 

Performance management and measurement has a bad name. But when it's done well, it can help us figure out what's working and where we need to focus on improvement. It's hard enough to get right for business as usual and even harder to find a system that doesn't just monitor innovation, but powers it.Jon Washington, the founder of Innovation Garage, and I work out where to start and what to consider when it comes to measuring innovation.http://www.the-innovation-garage.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-washington-6a7a1813/

Liliana Caimacan and I discuss what her role as Head of Innovation at Tata Consumer Products involves. We talk about the challenges consumer goods companies face when it comes to innovating and how businesses are transforming their innovation mindset. 

Warrick Cramer is a corporate innovator.We're talking about his frontline experience of building ecosystems and unlocking their potential value. Warrick created Vodafone's Global Innovation Centre, Tomorrow Street, in conjunction with the Luxembourg Government. Now, he's an Executive Board Member and Advisor to Hackers/Funders, a $150m Silicon Valley Venture Capital Fund. 

Today I'm in the hot seat! Actress and long-time friend, Meganne Young, interviews me to see if I can distill the world of ecosystems into something easy to understand.  Meganne Young starred in Black Sails (Starz Originals), Saints & Strangers (National Geographic), The Dating Game Killer (Discovery), Supernatural (CW) and The Kissing Booth (Netflix).Mentioned in this episode:Vizibl: https://www.vizibl.co/McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/managing-your-external-supply-system-for-innovationThe Invincible Company: https://www.strategyzer.com/books/the-invincible-company

Anoop is an expert in Strategic Partnerships and Alliances. He’s been a catalyst for transformative change improvement in high-profile, global partnerships worth over a billion dollars in total impact. Specifically, he helps businesses to contain costs whilst strategically utilising partnerships and resources.

Executives readily admit the importance of trust when working with third party partners and suppliers. But building trust isn't as easy as it seems.Andrea Montreuil and I discuss what trust looks like and how to build more valuable relationships for innovation.

Having strong relationships with your suppliers won't automatically lead to better innovation. Dr. Graham Cross and I discuss what supplier innovation looks like and how businesses can capture value from these relationships. 

To help me understand more about the role of government in innovation, I'm talking to Ian Reese. He looks after the Inspectorate Strategy and Innovation Unit for medicines and healthcare products in the UK. We speak about the dynamic relationship between the government and innovators, some of the processes involved and the role of lobbying and regulation.

If 55%-65% of enterprises source their innovations externally then enterprises need to enhance their ability of working with their suppliers. Darragh Toolan introduces me to Supplier Collaboration and Innovation as well as the idea of innovation ecosystems. 

The effects are COVID-19 are far reaching and difficult to predict. This pandemic is changing our behaviour and revealing new consumer needs. Companies must respond to these changes and they must do it fast. Chris Holmes and I are talking about how a global crisis ignites innovation in enterprises and what it might look like for the long term. 

Our newsfeeds are flooded with stories about the negative effects of COVID-19. Of course, the ramifications are huge and a lot of the impact is huge. But howis it affecting massive, multination companies? How are they finding ways to respond to the crisis with new ways of working that could transform how we do work well into the future? Isn't this the basis of innovation? Join Russell Carter and I as we unpick these questions. As the chairman and co-founder of Ten80 he's seeing, first hand, how corporations are responding to the crisis in ways that will transform them for the better.

A lot of people use terms like "supplier relationships" and "partnerships" interchangeably. To most of us, they mean the same thing. But when you're talking about your procurement strategy, it's important that you differentiate between the kinds of arrangements you want to nurture. They'll impact how you carry out your strategy and what resources you need to invest in.

With 60-80% of total organisational spend sitting with suppliers, leadership teams are recognising the strategic importance of Procurement and Supply Chain, and building a capability that is based on more than transactions. In doing so, companies can respond to market demands sooner and drive synergies between partners to create greater efficiencies.

I am very excited to be bringing you Mission: Innovation. The first episode will be out on Tuesday, March 31st.