The PICNIC Innovation Mash Up will be a one-day, active learning event focused on how businesses in traditional sectors can successfully apply top innovation and creativity processes used by creative industry professionals to launch new products and services, connect with customers, and grow. With this year’s theme: “The rise of new ownership” PICNIC wants to inspire businesses and organizations to start developing ways to let go, share control, co-create, open up, and innovate with their customers and civilians in the driver’s seat.

“Companies are racing to develop innovation processes which will create competitive advantage and new opportunities. The creative industries are a valuable source of inspiration and new ideas. PICNIC is bringing them together with other business professionals at the Mash Up to explore fresh strategies for product and service development and active engagement with clients and customers.”
- Marleen Stikker, PICNIC’s co-founder and Chair of the Board

Looking at how a company’s approach to innovation can be the difference between success and failure, most companies recognize that innovation is the lifeblood of long-term sustainable growth. With the different key ingredients for successful innovation, Accenture believes that those companies that take innovation seriously – and get it right – will be the main beneficiaries of the expected upturn.

With inspiring speakers, case studies and interactive workshops by among others Shell (scenario planning), Vodafone (crowdsourcing) and IDEO (design thinking) event participants coming from a wide range of fields (including technology, design, life sciences, financial services, media and communications and branding) will learn how business leaders have successfully applied innovation processes to achieve tangible results.

For more information about the PICNIC Innovation Mash Up, please visit http://www.picnicnetwork.org/picnic-mashup

Over the past three years, Accenture has been conducting a study called Banking 2012. This study examines the basic levers increasing banking profitability and the operating models required to deliver sustainable profitability in the new environment.

Secrets of Revenue sustainability
Across different markets, we see a number of shared characteristics differentiating those banks that achieve high performance in revenue generation – Shared characteristics includes: superior earnings quality, lower earnings risk, access to superior growth markets, and in some instances a combination of these factors. Superior earnings quality is typically found in banks able to generate higher asset turnover or higher margin earnings due to underlying operational efficiency.

The key to success is to be able to generate sustainable profits, with a credible plan to grow revenues in the long term. However, for many banks today this objective is still a tough challenge. Those banks that are out-performing their peers tend to demonstrate a core set of five underlying performance factors that lift their performance:

• Employee Productivity: the ability of staff to generate sales, acquire deposits and earn revenues;
• Customer relationships: the quality of service and relationship between the bank and its customers;
• Cost-to-serve: encompassing the overall cost of providing services to customers;
• Risk management: the rate of nonperforming credits, and the ability to recover outstanding loans;
• Innovation: the use of technology and new business models to engage and extend relationships with customers.

Many of these underlying factors are interrelated. For example, many banks with the most efficient distribution systems increasingly use both direct and multi-channel distribution systems to maximize their customer reach.

Increasing customer value
In most developed markets the majority of potential customers are within the banking system, and are well provided for in terms of financial needs. Opportunities to grow through new customer acquisitions in these markets or segments are increasingly limited and expensive. This while the opportunities to grow existing relationships are often not fully tapped. For instance, it is common for customers to have a low level of savings with the bank that provides their main transactional account. One leading UK bank reported that its current account customers only keep 25% of their savings balances with it. Banks that focus on increasing customer value can do so both by increasing the number of customers’ needs they meet; and by growing the overall share of wallet and utilization of these products.

Not only do banks need to maintain high levels of service and access, quality products and services, but they face innovative competition. Banks that excel at building deep customer relationships today are trying to maintain that vital human connection between staff and customers. Yet are increasingly employing technology and advanced business processes to enable them to do so.

The challenges of revenue growth are being strengthened by ongoing changes in the behaviour of self-directed consumers. They are becoming more volatile in their relationships and more sophisticated in their buying behaviour. Meeting these demands will pose serious challenges for banks to attract much-needed capital and deliver a strong return on equity to investors. But ongoing shifts in customer behaviour and advances in technology are changing not only what customers expect of banks, but also how banks deliver financial services.

For more information, please read our recently published Banking 2012 report:
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-banking-2012-revenue-growth-innovation-summary.aspx

The truth is of course that all of these play a role in successful innovation. And even these don’t give you a full picture of what is needed for continuous successful innovation. But is there one element that is so crucial that without it successful innovation would be impossible?

It’s pretty much agreed among innovation specialists that any real innovation has to be based on understanding customer challenges. After all, a truly innovative product or service introduces new benefits that offer a superior way to solve your customers’ challenges. And if this solution is fundamentally new and so much better than the current market offering, it can even become a game-changer, just as Amazon reinvented book-selling, and Southwest changed the airline game with their low-cost, no-frill offerings.

Successful innovations help solve challenge customers face in their daily life and the current compromises they have to make in fulfilling their needs with inadequate existing solutions. This can even be needs customers may not even be fully aware of: the so-called unarticulated needs. The key to this is in-depth customer insight. You need  a fresh understanding of your clients and the notso-obvious challenges they face to give you a competitive advantage. As Henry Ford famously said: “if I’d asked my customers what they needed, they’d have replied ‘a faster horse”. Ford recognized that their real need was getting from A to B more quickly, their compromise was using a not fast-enough horse. They simply could not imagine a totally new and better solution at that time.

In other words, consumers don’t or can’t always see the full potential of new technologies. They can imagine incremental improvements to what they have (a faster horse), but they can’t usually imagine something entirely different that solves their problems in a totally different way (a car, or an airplane), even though it would be orders of magnitude better. A company that is aware of the challenges their customers face and understand the future potential of new technologies, can come up with the right innovative solutions to those challenges . Their own model T-Ford, so to speak.

So the ultimate question companies should be asking is: “How can I solve this customer’s challenge better than my competitors?”

Again, to do that you really have to understand your customers and proximity is key to understanding your customers This is a lot easier for a company like Apple, as its employees are its own most discerning customers. But it’s a lot harder for, say, a financial services company. Of course, their employees also buy financial products, but that doesn’t mean they understand the challenges faced by specific target groups, such as doctors or entrepreneurs. One global electronics group has taken this particular bull by the horns and organizes ‘consumer safaris’ for its employees, where marketing and R&D people spend time in its customers’ homes. There they observe the actual challenges that their customers face on a daily basis to uncover opportunities for innovations that really do matter.

Combining customer insights you gain from such safaris with deep technological insight, gives you a powerful innovation driver. Certainly if you master to understand how current and emerging technology can be applied to meet future needs. That is industry foresight, the ability to foresee or prepare consciously for the future. You have to ask and be able to answer the questions “where is our industry going and how can we solve our customers’ current and future challenges”.

And this is where smart commercialization and speed to market become very important. The better the product and the more quickly you can launch it, the greater the lead you will have on your competitors and the longer you’ll be able to dominate the market. Or rather: timing to market is a crucial capability. After all, if you’re launching a new range of ice creams, it’s probably best not to do this in the winter. Just as you need to determine when customers will be ready to embrace a new technology (tablets anyone?).

The most successful innovative companies do this repeatedly, which is only possible because they have indeed embedded innovation in their organization, or systemized innovation.

This requires a comprehensive  innovation operating model such as Accenture’s Innovation Engine, which we specifically designed for our clients to systematically identify, develop and select more valuable innovation projects and scale these faster with a higher rate of success. We believe that systemizing innovation means embedding a customer-centric innovation and culture and process that enables first time right and fast. These processes will push out successful innovation with a higher degree of predictability and a higher correlation between input (R&D budget, investments) and output (demand-led profit growth).  In other words, it helps companies to come up with better solutions to real customer challenges, not on a random basis, but consistently and continuously.

So in short, innovation is about identifying your target audience and growth markets, combining customer insights and market foresight to come up with game-changing innovations that meet your customers’ ultimate needs. Only if you have systemized innovation in your organisation, you will consistently and profitably help and excite your customers again and again.

Join the discussion on the key ingredients for successful innovation here: http://linkd.in/AeRrk4

Embedding customer-centric innovation

Systemizing innovation means embedding customer- centric innovation and product development processes that are first time right and fast. These processes will push out successful innovation with a higher degree of predictability and a higher correlation between input (ie R&D budget) and output (ie demand-led profit growth), driven by Innovation Excellence.

So how does a company shift from a random invention-driven approach to innovation based on a systematic scaling model? The Accenture High Performance Innovation model is specifically designed to systematically develop and select more valuable innovation projects and scale them faster with a higher rate of success. The Accenture High Performance Innovation Process defines three distinct phases. The 1^st phase of Discovery is about systematically identifying the best growth opportunities for the company, to focus ideation and concept development in exactly the right place. Many companies lack a clear view on where and how they want to beat their competitors (knowing that it will be hard to beat them everywhere). But it’s a lot easier to build deep customer insight and market foresight if you have already identified the priority trends and growth markets relevant to your company. Working on that basis, you are far more likely to come up with the big ideas and develop successful innovation concepts. Successful innovators also allocate more time and resources to discovering, prioritizing and selecting the right ideas and innovation investments upfront in the innovation process. Competitive advantage in Innovation Discovery will result in fewer, bigger & better innovation ideas with higher value potential.

From Idea to Market launch

The second phase, Execution, covers the value chain from Idea to Market launch. Typical innovation execution problems include development reworking and waiting time. Reworking is necessary when innovation development work is not done well enough in the early development stages and has to be re-done at a later stage . This is often due to poorly defined development specifications or simply by the innovation idea’s lack of granularity. Waiting time occurs when critical development resources are overbooked. This is often due to companies running far too many (too small) innovation projects at any given moment. This multitude of innovation projects puts high demands on scarce development resources. Our research indicates that planned utilization of developers should not exceed 2/3 of their working hours. The other 1/3 is required to absorb the fluctuations intrinsic to development work, and success. Development work can’t be planned, like administrative work,  and if you try to do so work will pile up in front of the critical development resources, slowing down time to market by up to ten times. Competitive advantage in Innovation Execution will result in a higher success rate and faster time to market, while freeing up development resources for work on more important innovation growth opportunities.

Maximizing the value during its life cycle

The final phase, Operation, is about maximizing the value of the innovation during its entire life cycle. Most developers and innovation managers consider the 1^st market launch to be the end of an innovation project. This is a huge missed opportunity. After an innovation has proven its potential in its launch market, there is huge value in a rapid penetration of all relevant markets (geographies, channels, segments, customers, etc.). Also, you can probably reduce the cost base of the innovation as it scales and matures. Finally, if the innovation does what it is supposed to do, that is capture demand growth, it will attract me-too competition. The first mover advantage might last for as little as a few months, maybe a few years. You need competitive Innovation to develop new versions and new generations ahead of the competition.  So competitive advantage in Innovation Operation will secure sustained market share and profitability from your innovation.

Successful innovation companies excel in each area: Discovery, Execution and Operation of Innovation. If you fail in one, you either scale poor inventions or you don’t capture the value of your big ideas and foresight. By approaching innovation from an operational excellence angle, on the other hand, you certainly give yourself the best chances for success.

These concepts summarize the Accenture keynote presented by Accenture’s Tony Roby on the 4^th edition of the largest and most successful recurring Open Source Conference in the Benelux that was held on December 9^th in Amsterdam. The annual conference, founded by Accenture and Red Hat attracted nearly 800 people and offered an extensive program of real-life cases and first class keynote speakers. Simone Brummelhuis, founder and CEO of thenextwomen.com chaired the event. Simone is no stranger when it comes to innovation, as she is also part a member the Accenture Innovation Awards jury.

In the morning, plenary keynotes with titles like ‘Black Swans and Mobile Apps’ (Ron Tolido, Capgemini) and ‘The Perfect Storm and an Insatiable demand for Engaging Content’ (John Powell, Alfresco) included discussions about the revolutions in cloud, social and mobile solutions and the open future of cloud. Accenture’s Tony Roby presented how to take advantage of the Customer-driven Face and Enterprise Penetration of Open Source in the “Age of Open Source”.

Age of open source
In the last 5 years global enterprises have been experimenting with open source and kept an open mind to using it. Now, the open source software market has reached a turning point, with enterprises committing to clear strategies, policies and migrate mission-critical software to open source and open source software development. As the global enterprises and cloud providers continue to prove, the benefits of using Open Source software go well beyond cost-cutting. Due to among others the big reliance of web applications on Open Source, there is an increasing demand for open source solutions based on quality, reliability and speed, not just cost savings. Quality is overtaking cost as a primary adoption driver. This trend will develop as Open Source continues to evolve and address even more business critical functions.

Tony Roby ended with his final thought that Open Source is no longer following and commoditizing. Open Source has historically focused on commoditizing proprietary software, but the consumerization trend is moving so quickly that some of the newest technology solutions are Open Source from the start. With corporations more frequently turning to Open Source instead of traditional vendors, it has begun to out-innovate the traditional IT mega-vendors. It has evolved into an exceptional way to deliver high quality solutions that boost productivity and foster innovation.

After the inspiring and revealing morning keynotes, the 25 break-out sessions presented by Platinum and Gold Sponsors started in 5 different areas. These strong and independent sessions presented various customer cases and technical discussions ranging from Social CRM and Facing Big Data challenges to the future of Storage and Breaking down Content Silo’s with CMIS. Besides all presentations and sessions, the information market on the Prominade Deck provided both visitors and exhibitors with excellent opportunities for networking and community building in an open and very contemporary atmosphere.

The Innovation Awards honors high performance in the field of innovation, uniting and stimulating innovators in the Netherlands. Accenture Netherlands Banking lead, and moderator of the event, Barend van Doorn welcomed the audience with an introduction of the story behind the ‘Blue Tulip’ and introduced the first of three key note speakers of the day; former CEO of Shell: Jeroen van der Veer. In the inspiring presentation he addressed the need for a society to innovate, stating that governments have to stimulate -not finance- innovation and restore the link of confidence between governments, corporations and citizens. With the keynote titled “Game Changers”,  Accenture’s Global Innovation Lead Wouter Koetzier discussed this year’s participating concepts and their potential to have a breakthrough impact through 3 main trends in innovation to lead to Game Changers: Sustainability, Social and Digital. During the presentation he stated that innovation is the driving force for strong competitiveness, long-term profit and growth.

Besides these three game changing directions he pointed out a new topic in Innovation – “frugal” Innovation. Meaning the need to develop products for 10% of current cost price, to address the upcoming middle class in India, China, Brazil etc. This asks for totally new ways of Innovation. The last key note speaker was Internet Serial Entrepreneur and founder of The Next Web Conference Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

Winners AIA11
I played a role as moderator in the Media, Communication & High Tech session in the afternoon. The diversity among the impressive list of nominees shows that there is a clear trend towards more innovation. Many of the high quality concepts have the potential to be truly groundbreaking. During the event the nominated registrations pitched their concept and tried to convince the judges that their idea is the most innovative, viable and game changing. The six winners of the AIA11 Jury awards are:

• Repudo: an app to drop various kinds of digital media at any physical location.
• Ohpen: an online asset management tool for investment funds.
• Roadled: an innovative sustainable road light solution.
• Project Carebro: a new system which allows people with a physical handicap to perform activities and functions independently, by using their brainwaves.
• Qiy Foundation: an independent and secure platform on which individuals can create their own digital identity.
• Ecofont software: software for printing ’sustainable’ fonts with holes to save ink toner and reduce printing costs

The public’s choice awards 2011 for the concepts with the most votes via the website www.innovation-awards.nl are:

• Roamler: a unique mobile workforce which allows companies to carry out small assignments throughout the country
• Direct Openen in 20 minuten: a service by ING Bank to open a bank account within 20 minutes.
• Orphiro: an electric motorcycle for sustainable and comfortable driving.
• Open HealthHub: a cloud solution for data and services in healthcare.
• Rvarium Fire-Squid: a new kind of lightweight fire extuinguisher.

On behalf of Accenture, I would like to congratulate all winning concepts and thank the professional juries and presenters for their inspirational and innovative views and opinions. Furthermore, I would like to thanks the sponsors and contributors who made this event an overwhelming success.

To get a good impression of the evening, please click on the video or following pictures to view the full size image. The pictures of the winners can be viewed on www.innovation-awards.nl

Looking forward now, market analysts expect this trend to continue. Enterprises will increasingly deploy Open Source solutions in mission critical scenarios, at a service level that must be equal to or even better than closed source alternatives. Additionally, these solutions are being adopted increasingly by conservative IT organizations, driven by risk mitigations and cost considerations. Typically, organizations adopt the Open Source software stack bottom-up, that is they start on the system infrastructure level (eg. LINUX) and then move up the stack to application infrastructure (think applications servers) and to business applications.

Gartner published the report “Hype Cycle for Open-Source Software, 2011” on august 9th, 2011) which perfectly illustrates the expected adoption patterns of Open Source technologies by enterprises. Looking forward to the next 2 years, Gartner expects high benefits from initiatives that enable mission critical workloads on LINUX and LINUX on IBM Z-series. Additionally, benefits are expected in the next 2 years from initiatives that help organizations adopt Open Source DBMS, E-learning systems, messaging systems and Portals.

It is interesting to note that these areas are very strongly aligned with the Accenture Open Source Offerings. The Accenture Open Source substitution offering migrates proprietary solutions to Open Source solutions on the Operating System level (AIX/Solaris to LINUX), on the database level (eg. Oracle to MySQL/EnterpriseDB) and application server level (eg Websphere/Weblogic to JBOSS). For all solutions mission critical architectures are available to meet todays requirements in a very cost-effective manner. It helps clients to realize business applications using Open Source. A few good examples in this area are Portal solutions, Document and content management solutions, E-learning solutions and E-commerce platforms.

The adoption of Open Source in the Dutch market has clearly started, and we believe over time the usage of Open Source will become a “no brainer” for a number of areas. While many organizations might not do a stand-alone “Open Source” project, many large scale infrastructure transformation programs heavily use Open Source. The usage of Open Source technologies can also be a good step towards Cloud Computing in a number of cases over a longer term.

Innovation success is either luck or it is based on a competitive advantage in foresight & insight. Companies that out-innovate competition time and again, systematically develop the market foresight and customer insight that informs them which are the most attractive future growth options and where they have the best chance of winning. Innovation most of the time does not start with an idea (something that happens to you) but with a sound understanding of a business opportunity driven by a customer need.  The rigorous and systematic approach to defining business opportunities and developing ideas and solutions to meet customer needs, drives Bigger & Better innovation simultaneously. Consistent innovation success builds innovation confidence within the organization (f/e to overcome the fear to fail) and reinforces client interest in news from the company, almost as a self fulfilling prophecy. Innovative companies are also seen as more attractive to work for by top talent. So this is all why companies as diverse as Google, P&G and of course Apple generate superior value from innovation.

Accenture research confirms that successful innovators take a systematic approach to innovation, balancing offensive innovations (breakthrough and platform) with defensive innovations (incremental). Innovation portfolio management in essence is an effective form of risk management, helping senior management keep their finger on the pulse of what works and what doesn’t work, and releasing funds step by step as uncertainty decreases.

So how do companies find the right balance in their project portfolio? Let’s take a closer look at the three innovation types, each with their own level of ability to attract new demand and risk profile.

Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovations are defensive, designed to secure or marginally improve existing market positions. Incremental innovations are variations on themes which do not offer a true differentiated customer benefit and therefore don’t provide the customer with a reason to exercise additional demand. The growth generated by incremental innovations is mostly the result of activation, attention or refreshment. Incremental Innovation is therefore often called renovation rather than innovation.

All market positions require some level of renovation but companies tend to overemphasize incremental. The rationale is clear: incremental projects are easier, faster, less expensive and less risky than real innovation projects. However, if the plan is to generate substantial demand-led growth from innovation, it is unlikely that an incremental portfolio will deliver. The overemphasis on incremental can also hide a more fundamental problem of a lack of big innovation ideas. This links back often to a competitive disadvantage in market foresight & customer insight. As described in the recent Accenture article “The Innovation Death Spiral” incremental innovation does drive-up business complexity and associated costs. If the value of the achieved growth is smaller than the cost of the additional complexity, incremental innovation destroys value.

Platform Innovation

Platform innovations provide superior customers benefits. If the benefits are sufficiently relevant and differentiated, they will allow a price premium or market share gain. Platform innovations in general do not grow market volume. They seduce customers away from competition, or replace existing volumes with better margin volumes. Platforms are therefore also called Share of Market Innovation.  Platform innovations are typically about improved performance (e.g. iPhone4 or iPad2) or about a new combination of benefits (e.g Diet Coke or Coke Zero: no calories same Coke taste). P&G’s “First Moment of Truth” philosophy is in essence platform innovation: Their ambition simply is that product performance at 1^st trial is so distinctively superior that consumers will become instantly loyal to the brand.

Platforms take more time & budget and are more uncertain than incremental innovations. If you get them right they will bring more profitable growth. If you get them right frequently and consistently, platforms can significantly contribute to the economic value and company valuation.

The challenge with platform innovation is the increasing pace of commoditization, which reduces the competitive advantage and limits cash flow. Think of the increasing speed at which Retailer brands release exact copies of successful product innovations these days, often taking rapidly up to half of the market in their stores. The rapid commoditization of product platforms is driving a trend of Business Model Innovations. In addition to the product, other aspects of the business model are innovated, strengthening the sustainment of competitive advantage over time. Where would iPhone be without the App Store and where would Nespresso be without the Nespresso machines and the direct to consumer delivery channel?

Breakthrough Innovation

Breakthrough innovations create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The term break through comes from technology and often they are based on some sort of proprietary new technology. Others appear to hold new technology but mostly apply existing technology in relevant novel ways (I promise this is my last reference to iPhone).  Break Through innovation is high effort, high risk, long lead time but high reward, if you get it right. The challenges with break through increasingly are with the magnitude of the upfront investment. For example blockbuster medicine development in Pharmaceuticals has become almost unaffordable. I feel it is important however to realize ourselves that not all break through requires big new technology solutions. Break Through thinking in business, market definition or even product positioning can establish new markets and new segments. So when Unilever redefined Cup a Soup from a bad soup to a healthy coffee alternative, it established a new habit: the Cup a Soup 4 pm moment. In similar ways mainstream digital technologies have created the opening for innovative business models that have disrupted industries as diverse as travel, real estate and probably soon payment.

In my next post I’ll be talking about moving from innovation that happens to you to manage innovation (your tomorrow’s business) with the same rigor and discipline as you manage your current business. Until then, I’d like to leave you with two questions:

1.         How incremental is your innovation portfolio?

2.         What are your options for non-technology led breakthroughs?

So on the face of it, entrepreneurship is alive and kicking in the Netherlands. In fact, it’s healthier than it has been for decades. However, the Monitor also notes the shortcomings – or weaknesses – of the Dutch entrepreneurial world. Foremost among these is the modest level of product and business innovation. Partly as a result of this lack of innovation, the Netherlands has at best an average score in terms of the number of fast-growing businesses.

Unfortunately this comes at a time, the GEM survey notes, when the after-effects of the financial crisis mean that the economies of the world – including the Dutch economy – are confronted with a whole range of challenges that can only be met through ambitious and innovative entrepreneurship. Of course, there are still many innovative businesses in the Netherlands. A fact that is clearly attested to by the large number of entrants at this year’s edition of the Accenture Innovation Awards: no less than 1,235 submissions of innovative concepts, covering virtually every business sector and from platform innovations to unique innovative products, both from start-ups and major corporations

However, if the GEM survey is right, there is a real and growing gap between entrepreneurship and innovation in the Netherlands. This would mean this country is far and away the most entrepreneurial in Europe, and yet manages to be merely average in terms of innovation. How is that paradox possible?

The burden of large corporations

What we see at Accenture is that large corporates – which still account for a very sizeable portion of the country’s business activities and business revenues – find it more difficult than smaller, agile start-ups to truly embed innovation in their organisations. Large and established companies have invested lots of money, resources and people in their current business. They have factories, office buildings and large workforces to maintain and pay for. It’s easier and safer to focus on what they already know and currently are good at. On top of that, listed companies are forced to think far too much in terms of short-term results, with the aim of maintaining or bolstering their share price and creating shareholder value.

And yet it has been proven time and again that truly innovative companies create far more long-term value than companies than those that fail to innovate. Accenture research clearly shows that innovation is essential to long-term success and long-term profitable growth. We frequently look at companies’ future value on the stock exchange. What we see is that the more innovative a company is, the greater that future value, which obviously makes that company a lot more interesting for shareholders.

Real innovation is a high risk business, though, which is why we advise our clients to consciously balance their investment across innovation types: incremental, platform, and breakthrough. Each of these has a different level of reward and risk. Low risk incremental innovations help protect your current business, while platform innovations add value and can boost margins. However, high risk breakthrough innovations are the ones that open up whole new markets, producing a market-changing product or business model. Platform and breakthrough innovations are crucial for large corporations with ambitious organic growth aspirations.

It can be a lot easier for agile start-ups to execute on a breakthrough concept, as they’re unburdened by an existing business or major overheads, and they are entrepreneurial by definition. Some large corporates are innovative by nature, simply because they are active in innovative sectors (such as the semi-conductor industry). They have to continuously innovate to stay ahead of the competition. In other more traditional and conservative sectors, such as the financial industry, innovation can however be more difficult. These are often risk-averse and non-entrepreneurial companies, whose existing organisation will stifle or even suffocate a new, revolutionary business idea.

A way out: do the right thing right

While many of the innovative ideas entered for the Accenture Innovation Awards have indeed been submitted by start-ups, a significant number have still come from large corporates. Last year’s Accenture Innovation Awards actually rewarded a successful solution to this innovation dilemma faced by large companies, which came from the financial services industry.

One way out of the dilemma of how allocate the right amount of resources without risking your current business is to spin-off a new, innovative concept as a stand-alone business. This innovative route was taken by insurance company InShared, winners of last year’s Accenture Innovation Awards in the category Financial Marketing. InShared is a wholly-owned subsidiary of insurance giant Achmea. Achmea took a truly innovative concept – paying back unused premiums to its customers at the end of the year – and set up a new business to develop the concept. For Achmea, that was doing the right thing and doing the thing right, which is vital to successful innovation.

That’s just one great solution to the innovation dilemma. Each company needs to define the best way to foster true innovations within the context of their existing business. Because innovation is also about asking the right questions, a willingness to make tough decisions and the determination to get the execution right. And you have to do it the right way for your business.

By bringing together technical and business talent  fragmented across the Dutch A2 high way road (which connects the 2 most prominent Tech melting pot High Tech Campus Eindhoven with the center for creativity, finance and business opportunities in Amsterdam), we aim to stimulate the level of innovation and entrepreneurship in this region. The participants were challenged to come up with new business ideas and innovations across four thematic streams: Consumer Lifestyle, Clean Tech and Energy, Healthcare and Media & Communication.

After 6 months of (pre)rounds, 47 ideas and 36 contestants; 5 concepts were nominated to pitch their business plan. With the support of their coaches including Roxann Paulson (CEO Philips Crystalize), Mayor of Appsterdam Mike Lee and myself, the teams had to convince the judges and a panel of early stage investors that their idea is viable and game changing. The major trend for Mobile Apps among this year’s submitted concepts for the Accenture Innovation Awards 2011 can also be seen in this year’s nominated concepts:

• Crowdriding: A mobile app that enables car drivers to offer their free car seats to hitchhikers against a small fee.
• Ideedock: An internal platform for organizations to stimulate innovation by challenging employees to come up with new ideas.
• QAS: An alarming system for earthquakes by installing high tech sensors in electronic devices.
• Shopylife: A mobile app combining social aspects with location based shopping with the possibility to tag and share stores and products with friends.
• Wiehaalt: A mobile app that let you easily contact your trusted network to pick up your child at the daycare when you’re not able to make it on time.

The Grand Finale

The evening started with a speech by Boudewijn Docter, founder of last year’s winning concept: Effect Photonics. With 6 people working on the project for over one year, he emphasized that winning the challenge was critical to lift off his project and opened many doors to attract sponsors and pilot customers.

Following, each of the 5 teams had to present their innovative and original business plan to convince the jury in order to win the prize incl. 5000 EUR, introduction to an exclusive network of entrepreneurs, investors and potential partners and media exposure. The jury consisted out of Roel van Summeren (Philips), Jelto Smits (Prime Ventures), Jasper Levink (Ttopstart) and Bart Fischer (Accenture) complimented all teams for their energetic, enthusiastic and professional presentations and high-quality business plans. After many critical question from the jury and the audience, the winner of the A2 Challenge 2011 was Crowdriding, praised for its scalable business model with clear focus on minimum requirements to launch and learn from the market.

“Crowdriding had a clear and staged to-do market strategy in a sizeable market, that may even be larger if platform technology is leveraged to alternative application areas.” said Roel van Summeren.

The startup that I coached personally – Ideedock – got the second price, which will still facilitate an accelerated growth of this technology startup. They have developed a smart cloud based platform to support Idea contests within organizations. I am very enthousiastic about their chances, as they have a couple of strong launching customers, and a very smart scalable model based on their hosted solution.

Inspired and challenged, this year’s edition has set the standards even higher for young talents in the Netherlands to participate next year in the A2 Challenge 2012.

To get a good impression of the evening, please click on the following pictures to view the full size image.