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.

• Why turning to entrepreneurialism and innovation requires a strong cultural transformation

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.

• Sustainability alone cannot drive innovation; it needs to be conducted in a way that exceeds clients' needs and expectations. 

• Unilever

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.

• How leaders can approach the concept of celebrating failure 

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.

• The most common misconceptions of Agile methodology, and what it really is

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 future-proofing means in the context of business and innovation

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.

• Why many teams are struggling with delivering impact with innovation

Resources:

• 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.

Resources: