Corporate Innovation: Staying Ahead of the Future

(From left to right) Harvey Ma, Dr Hank Huang, Steven Tien, Jeslin Bay and Paddy Tan

• The event provided insights on the importance of corporate innovation and alignment of innovation strategy with overall corporate direction
• Together with Steven Tien, APAC Tablet Segment Leader of Lenovo, Dr Hank Huang, Managing Director of IAPS, 陳立涵 and 馬翰韋, Co-Founders of BlackStorm Consulting discussed about innovating to ensure organisation’s long term success

August 15, 2019: BlackStorm Consulting was privileged to co-organise the event on “Corporate Innovation: Staying Ahead of the Future” held on August 15, 2019 with Industry Accelerator and Patent Strategy (IAPS) and Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA), along with BlackStorm Consulting’s partner – G Camp from Institute for Information Industry (III).

Our Co-Founders 陳立涵 and 馬梅朵 started with a presentation at the event to discuss about corporate innovation. The fireside chat session was then joined by our Taiwan Co-Founder, Harvey Ma, Co-Founder, Paddy Tan, APAC Tablet Segment Leader of Lenovo, Steven Tien and Managing Director of IAPS, Dr Hank Huang.

Huge corporations are dominating our lives and big companies are caught in a bind. They need to innovate in order to stay ahead of the competition. However, corporate innovation is notoriously difficult to adopt for big businesses.

Here are the 3 main questions being answered during the presentation:

1. What is Corporate Innovation and why is it important?
2. Which is the right Corporate Innovation initiative for you?
3. How do you align Corporate Innovation strategy with your overall corporate direction?

Below is a quick summary of the event: 

Seminar – Corporate Innovation: Staying Ahead of the Future

 Our Co-Founder, Paddy Tan sharing about one of our case studies for corporate innovation

Innovation doesn’t solely defined by new devices, ideas or methods itself, but also by the process of unearthing new ways to do things. Our Co-Founder, Jeslin Bay has mentioned a few pointers on the differences between start-up innovation and corporate innovation. Start-up innovation focuses on small scale which consists of a lean team with a simplistic organisational structure. Whereas for corporate innovation, it focuses on a larger scale that consists of a larger team with a complex organisational structure. Companies with a smaller team tend to adapt to new situations and innovations easier compared to companies with a bigger team. As bigger companies are required to go through multiple tests and procedures before they can make any new implementation. This is where it will spark synergy between start-ups and corporates.

Since innovation is complex, company-wide endeavour,  one can break them down to 3 types of innovation – (i) Technology Innovation, (ii) Business Model Innovation, and (iii) Strategy Innovation. Each of the three innovations play different roles in different companies.

(i) Technology innovation – the most common trigger for launching a new market or ending an existing one. A very good example would be Grab and Uber.

(ii) Business Model Innovation –  consists of 4 growth factors – Market Size, High Gross Margin, Distribution, and Network Effects.

(iii) Strategy Innovation – how will you defend your company when it faces competition?

All the aforementioned innovations require a set of crosscutting practices and processes to structure, organise and encourage it. As we are all living and working in an increasingly fast-paced and ever-changing world, companies need to get these strategic, creative, executional, and organisational factors correct to innovate successfully.

 Fireside Chat – Why Innovation is Crucial to Your Organisation’s Long Term Success?

The seminar was soon transited to the fireside chat where Harvey Ma being the moderator and Paddy Tan as one of the panelists. They were accompanied by Dr Hank Huang, Managing Director of IAPS  and Steven Tien, APAC Tablet Segment Leader of Lenovo.

Our Co- Founder, Paddy Tan & Harvey Ma having a great discussion about “Why innovation is crucial to one’s organisation’s long term success?” with Dr Hank Huang & Steven Tien

During the fireside chat session, Dr Hank Huang gave insights on what can be done by the universities to ensure that the next generation of talent are ahead of the rapid changes. He also shared the challenges that he has observed as an accelerator when a startup tried to work together with a large corporate.

To add on, Steven Tien also shared some trends that he has observed when working with people in the APAC region in terms of their mindset of innovating. As someone working in a tech MNC such as Lenovo, Steven also provided his two cents on how an MNC can do better and what are the restrictions that one should look out for when innovating as an MNC.

Numerous insightful advises on “How companies in the traditional sectors can embrace corporate innovation” were shared by our co-Founder, Paddy Tan.  He mentioned that the drive to innovate always come from one’s experience from the past. The experience that one has accumulated over time makes one realized that it is crucial to stay ahead and gain from innovating.

Overall, the event was a great success. We are glad that everyone left the room with many fruitful takeaways. Corporate Innovation is something that one should not neglect as the pace of change has gone hyperspeed in the digital age. Many companies ranging from startups to big corporates are actively exploring into incorporating corporate innovation into their companies.

Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone who had participated in this event. We hope you enjoyed the presentation as much as we do.

 

About BlackStorm Consulting

BlackStorm Consulting is a boutique growth consultancy firm that specialises in corporate strategy, profit management and investment management. We mainly serve clients in four sectors: FinTech, Gaming, Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT), and Manufacturing.

Our clients and connections are internationally present and range from small and medium sized businesses, MNCs, to government agencies.

About Industry Accelerator & Patent Strategy (IAPS)

IAPS (http://iaps.nctu.edu.tw/) is a university-affiliated and tech-focused startup accelerator. We are building the most diverse startup ecosystem that serves startups, investors and corporates on a global scale. IAPS’s acceleration services include investment, corporate engagement, global market development, deep mentoring, government resources, co-working space and more.

About Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA)

Taiwan Tech Arena (https://taiwanarena.tech/) champions entrepreneurship and innovation with the goal of building a vibrant international startup ecosystem in Taiwan.

About G Camp

At G Camp (https://web.iii.org.tw/), our mentor would provide assistance for startups for global expansion to create the next unicorn, which included entrepreneurial belief, international market entering, corporate collaboration, startup expansion management, investment relationship, and global fundraising. G represents “Growing”, “Global”, and “Go”, creating an environment that accelerates startups growth and internationalization.