Innovation is a key focus for businesses looking to stay competitive. Many corporations hunt for new ways to gain an edge. Many have also noticed that there are lots of exciting actors in their local (and even wider) innovation ecosystem. It seems like every time they turn around, there are more ideas and opportunities. And globally, there is an ever-growing pool of new startups with remarkable products and services.
How can corporations get to know these players, nurture their ideas, and even get involved so as to benefit? Activate Ecosystem Growth is one such way.
The case study in our latest report, Lessons in Corporate Innovation, discusses how Qatar Development Bank (QDB) focused on its local and national innovation ecosystem. QDB became involved with UBI Global’s premier annual event, The World Incubation Summit 2019. 
With the event and in sponsorship of The World Benchmark Study, the company set its aim on nurturing and promoting its city’s and country’s startup talent. With the collaboration, QDB underscores the importance of identifying quality incubators and accelerators as champions of the innovation landscape.
Download Uncover the Innovation Community – Activate Ecosystem Growth, for a closer look.
Overall, the report provides a thought-provoking look at how large organizations are embracing young, innovative startups to support business needs in key areas. The case study spotlighting how QDB focused on ecosystem growth is just one example.
Most corporations do not know who the players are in their local innovation ecosystem- nor how to become part of the innovation ecosystem.
If they did become part of it, what role would they play? Whereas “corporate venturing” is a desire, they need more information and analysis to understand the ecosystem and identify top talent.
Moreover, they need a credible source to find growth startups with scalable ideas and to judge which ones are winners.
For this, Qatar Development Bank turned to UBI Global which we discuss in the latest installment of our Insights Series, Uncover the Innovation Community – Activate Ecosystem Growth.
Interest from corporations into the world of business incubators and accelerators- and their associated startups- is evident.
Over one-third of the UBI Global member 
programs benchmarked reported at least one corporate partner. It is through these partnerships that corporations secure their future competitive advantage while simultaneously protecting their core brand identity.
Realizing the value of innovation starts with education on the global landscape, and UBI Global is dedicated to enabling worldwide collaborations that impact innovation.
UBI Global offers international events, insights, tools, consulting, and more. Its network consists of more than 1200 business incubators and accelerators from over 90 different countries. Members represent over 20,000 startups worldwide.
Download for free: Uncover the Innovation Community – Activate Ecosystem Growth.
We know that innovation is top of mind for businesses looking to stay competitive. Many corporations look for new ways to gain an edge, and often that means greater engagement with their employees, customers, and those communities they operate in.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one such way that smart businesses leverage to improve image, brand, and to simply make a difference; many corporate leaders are turning to startups to help boost their strategies.
This is what we mean when we say Activate CSR Strategies.
Corporate Social Responsibility is a set of policies and processes that ensure a company is conducting business in an ethical way. This includes taking account of their social, economic, and environmental impact as well as considering human rights. Corporations employ different methods and activities to impact their social responsibility, including:
Corporations source partnerships and ecosystem intelligence to boost their own strategies. In our latest installment of our Insights Series, we discuss how Cisco Corporate Affairs uncovered ethics-focused startups in the global innovation landscape as a way to support its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. Download CSR Strategies Case Study, for a closer look. Overall, the report provides a thought-provoking look at how large organizations are embracing young, innovative startups through partnerships and knowledge to support business needs in key areas.
Consumer and corporate demands for socially responsible practices in business can drive new innovations. Would inventing packaging that uses less plastic have happened if not guided by social responsibility demands? On the flipside, let us consider startups’ influence on corporations that may or may not have set up CSR strategies. Wouldn’t seeing the market potential for products and services invented with a focus on social impact inspire corporate partnership and investment?
There certainly is a case to be made that innovators and their startups learn from corporations- and vice versa. CSR Strategies Case Study discusses this notion of mutual influence in its collection of cases.
Interest from corporations into the world of business incubators and accelerators is evident; over one-third of the UBI Global member programs benchmarked reported at least one corporate partner. It is through these partnerships that corporations secure their future competitive advantage while simultaneously protecting their core brand identity.
Realizing the value of innovation starts with education on the global landscape, and UBI Global is dedicated to enabling worldwide collaborations that impact innovation. We offer international events, insights, tools, consulting, and more to activate your innovation through our interactive learning community. This network consists of more than 1200 business incubators and accelerators from over 90 different countries. Our members represent over 20,000 startups worldwide.
As the curator of this interactive learning community, we are sharing our knowledge of corporations in CSR Strategies Case Study
Last week’s GCV Symposium was a fantastic event that brought the venture capital ecosystem together. Founder and CEO James Mawson and his team created an exciting event full of impactful collaborations, new technology, and insights on uncovering startups. This article shares 6 innovation secrets we learned in London.
While innovation as a problem solver is not new, it is intensifying as the number one reason industries develop an in-house innovation team. Our interactive community of business incubators and accelerators would agree; solving problems with a new idea is the foundation for many of their startups. What starts as a spark of an idea evolves into a new product, service or platform ready for the world market.
It is true – startups work at a pace that is light-speed compared to most of their corporate counterparts. Thanks to their small workforce, meetings are more like brainstorming sessions and everyone has permission to be as innovative as possible. There is no such thing as an upward chain of command, all team members are actors. However, it was an interesting innovation secret to bring up the topic of mobility.
Mobility, in this case, means that this corporation is able to seek innovation anywhere in the world, not just their own local ecosystem or even in their own country. Thanks to initiatives by government agencies around the world, innovation is crossing borders more easily than at any other time in history.
While we were discussing innovation secrets with a UBI Global Pro Member, we learned their real-time priorities. It struck us that all of their opportunities for more attention, increased event participation, greater interest from students, and expansion on a global scale need a marketing plan. Good, solid communication and networking in the form of a marketing strategy are crucial at any stage of business. Participating in events such as the London symposium or our own WIS19 can help to address these needs for global attention.
In today’s competitive innovation landscape, business incubators and accelerators have even more of an importance to startups than before. While ideas are easy to come by, turning them into viable, healthy businesses that will scale is not for the faint of heart, but is something that at which our members excel.
On the other side of the coin, this conversation was with a large corporate online retailer, who not only collaborates with startups for new technology, they also seek nimble, flexible startup companies to develop their internal ideas. While this seems like a lot to juggle at the same time for a small in-house innovation team, they are making it work and affecting the bottom line for their brand in a positive way. How are they doing it? This corporation has an efficient process to discover the most effective startups that immediately address the needs of the company, the market, and the future.
The largest conglomerate we spoke with at the event, this innovation expert was finding it a challenge to reach the wider market with new technology. Was it because they are firmly entrenched with existing brand models? Were they instead trying to develop technology that nobody really wanted? Fortunately, they were open to our suggestion of a case study in trendspotting, and UBI Global can deliver that intelligence on a local and global scale. Read more about our adventures corporations seeking innovation in the Insight Series located here.
It is never a bad thing to know exactly what you want, have a plan, and execute it perfectly, which was what this corporation does with its innovation venturing capital. Investing only in later-stage startup companies, this corporation agreed completely with one of our members who recently added a business accelerator program on to their business incubator. We will be writing more about this initiative in later editions of the blog and Engage member magazine.
The above are real innovation secrets we heard in London at last week’s event. In meetings with corporate innovation managers, CEOs, startups, business incubators and accelerators, and others in the innovation landscape, we were able to get into the secrets driving their success. Seeking knowledge through networking is part of what we do at UBI Global on behalf of our members (and ourselves) to gain understanding and share through knowledge bank articles such as this one.
If your program is seeking networking time with meaningful partners, the perfect event for you is just a few months away. Registration is open to apply for an invitation to the World Incubation Summit 2019. This event will also be rich with opportunities to find new partners and collaborators in the innovation landscape.
WIS19 consists of four days of interactive enrichment, education, networking, and the recognition of the top-ranked incubation programs as identified in the World Benchmark Study 2019 – 2020. Gain a first-hand understanding of how events like the one in London can activate your innovation efforts by registering for WIS19 here.