Corporate innovation refers to deliberately promoting original and out-of-the-box thinking within the company environment. To achieve this, many firms set up offices in co-working or other shared spaces to get to know startups and identify future markets for potential collaborations.
We all know that corporate venturing, corporate innovation, and startup scouting are growing trends. However, companies are still using extremely inefficient tools to follow them, receiving poor results, as well as too many options. “The more the merrier” doesn’t always indicate a positive connotation. Especially if you have to analyse those results yourself, one by one. What we define as “SAD syndrome“.
In this Webinar, our client Cécile Cordier, Head of Innovation at Engie Global Energy Management Solutions, provided some interesting insight on how Novable helped smooth out the journey toward corporate innovation.
Moreover, Yifan Di, Head of Product at Novable, talked about how the platform saves you time and energy in finding quality candidates for your innovation projects. How? By performing scouting activities from a +2 million startup database.
During our webinar, we had the pleasure to host Cécile Cordier, Head of Innovation at Engie Global Energy Management Solutions. Listening to the experience gained by working in the innovation field for over 10 years was inspiring.
Recently, the interest shifted more from internal to external innovation, finding the startup and entrepreneurs’ world really fascinating. After becoming an angel investor in 2020, she was able to acquire a clearer and more direct view of several innovators’ figures and get inspired by them.
The key driver encouraging companies like Engie to engage in open corporate innovation and partner with startups is the success that you can obtain from this collaborative journey. “If you have to do everything yourself, it is not going to work”, stated Cécile. As a company, you have a role to play in society, and it is important to collaborate with many stakeholders. They provide a grasp of what is happening in the external ecosystem, among your customers, and in the countries in which you are operating.
Engie was stuck between:
Usually, big corporations don’t have the time to collaborate with startups. Novable, and in particular the Real-time Search feature, is a rapid way to gather information in a few minutes, spiking the interest of who is all about following the corporate innovation trend.
The aspect that she particularly appreciated about Novable is the contribution that the Agents give to the research process. Discussing together the strategy and the different steps to reach the final objectives is what makes this collaborative project toward corporate innovation successful in the first place.
Let’s have a look at the different characteristics of the Novable platform, by answering the following 3 main questions.
The Novable platform provides lists of companies whose activities match your description, requirements, and operating field in order to reach high levels of corporate innovation.
In order to obtain a list of companies, there are two possible ways to act. We will start by explaining the main one, known as the DeepMatching™ powered campaign.
Deepmatching™ is the in-house developed algorithm at the core of the Novable platform, which is highly quality-focused.
The first step of the startup scouting journey is the creation of the campaign. This is a way to express what you are looking for, in order to receive a list of companies whose activities match your description, also defined as a “Golden Basket”.
Through the creation of the campaign, you will be able to talk to the algorithm just as you were talking to a consultant. After describing your request, you can select more specific topics (2 to 8) to set the whole context of the search. There are so many innovative companies in our database. Therefore, this step helps the machine to get more specific about what you are asking.
The results are then ranked in a semantic closeness to your input. Assigning a match or a miss tag to your golden basket elements is crucial. This is one of the key values of Novable because it helps the algorithm in learning from its mistakes and iterate your results.
The second way to use the platform is through the Real-time search feature, which is speed-focused. In this case, you just have to type a few keywords (3-10) and select the countries you are interested in using the geographical filter. You will get your results in real-time.
It is common for users to test this option before creating an actual campaign, just to have a quick overview of what is out there in the research field.
Corporate innovation is often associated with technological advancements. However, a greater emphasis should be placed on a collaborative approach. It facilitates the implementation of innovative, successful ideas, by spreading risk to a larger group of factors.
[…] Find out how Novable helps smooth out the journey toward corporate innovation and how it saves you time in finding quality candidates. […]