Corporations focus on delivering the best products/services to their target customers.
They naturally steer away from new and risky ventures.
Innovators focus on testing risky unique value offers, technologies, and business models.
Corporate innovation centers are physical open innovation structures designed for companies to keep up with innovative developments outside their sectoral expertise and to transform suitable ideas into valuable services and products.
These centers are supported by processes that enable them to bring innovation needs and opportunities to the surface, conduct R&D and innovation studies with their customers, interact with startups, academics, entrepreneurs, and researchers in an innovation-oriented manner, and engage in joint innovation efforts with companies in different sectors.
Examples of these processes include seasonal startup acceleration programs, long-term R&D and startup incubation programs in specific focuses, and regular content production in focused areas.
Subject matter experts can be continuously involved in corporate innovation centers by being included as stakeholders in mentoring and content production processes in acceleration and incubation programs.
Corporate innovation center examples
Google X
Through its corporate innovation center, Google has been able to keep its products in a continuous process of improvement and updating. Google focuses on various fields such as agricultural food, marine sustainability, robotics, and inter-device connectivity. Successful projects produced by the innovation center include Google Glass, Google's self-driving car Waymo, Google Contact Lens, and Project Loon.
Verizon 5G Lab
With innovation centers established in different regions of the United States, Verizon supports solutions that contribute to the use of 5G networks. Through startup acceleration and incubation processes in these centers, they aim to regularly interact with successful entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. Areas of focus for developing integrated solutions with 5G technology include robotics, self-driving cars, and healthcare services. In Verizon's corporate innovation center, in collaboration with SoCal Tech Bridge, infrastructure has been prepared to produce drones, connected vehicles, energy communication and management, and base security solutions for the defense industry.
Other successful corporate innovation centers include Tim Innovation Labs, Amazon Lab126, Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab, Staples' Velocity Lab, Lowe's Innovation Lab, Capital One Labs, TCS Innovation Labs, and Mastercard Foundry.
Lessons Learned from Faulty Designs
What makes corporate innovation centers unique is the multifaceted working environment that facilitates the development of solutions aligned with the company's core business.
In an ecosystem where physical and digital elements work together in an innovation-focused environment, there are some points to consider:
Some companies require stakeholders to sign confidentiality agreements when stepping into the innovation centers, which reduces the participation of external stakeholders. Privacy rules applicable to R&D are contrary to the nature of innovation. This does not necessarily mean disclosing every trade secret. Innovation centers aim to discover the new. Rather than focusing on corporate trade secrets, it would be a better start to focus on solving problems that need to be addressed.
Another issue is when innovation centers focus on topics that do not contribute to the company's core business model. Sometimes companies conduct research in these centers that they will never use. Although it may seem like a good marketing activity for outsiders, stakeholders inside and outside the company who realize that these initiatives will not be implemented will not work with the same motivation again. It would be healthier to focus on topics where the company can create value rather than popular topics.
Focusing on project outputs and integrating new businesses into the company's core model is not easy. For this, a common language needs to be used. Creating a common language in innovation involves a clear understanding of expectations and needs by all stakeholders and measuring all activities with success metrics.
One final point is the criticality of stakeholders in ecosystem design. Innovation is about positioning existing elements for a new purpose rather than creating something from scratch. Therefore, you may not be able to anticipate which expertise will be needed initially. It would be a better design to have representation from all departments within the company, as well as universities, startup teams, and mentors from different specialties. Corporate innovation should be a matter for all business units.
Stakeholders should not only generate insights but also support corporate innovation centers with their other resources. An innovation center that operates like an ecosystem should be able to evaluate physical resources that entrepreneurs who can prototype IoT, maker labs, or university laboratories can offer based on needs. Another important resource is content production. We are not talking about a marketing activity. Opinions of different experts that will help with idea development, problem identification, and vision design can be regularly shared with the innovation center's internal and external stakeholders through digital and physical channels.
As technology and development continue to evolve, we will continue to encounter more complex problems. Corporate innovation centers can be a good step towards developing a common innovation culture to solve complex problems. These centers can enable stakeholders to get to know each other, build trust among stakeholders, and gain experience in working together in common processes, thereby enabling the development of an innovation culture.
At Workinlot we design process frameworks that enable companies to collaborate with technology firms and startups. To ensure these designs are optimally developed, we provide iterative project management support in partnership with the organization.
Through this collaborative and iterative knowledge transfer, we have helped establish corporate venture capital funds, open innovation platforms, and venture builder structures.
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