

Ideas and concepts that work can be rapidly scaled, and those that fail can be shut down with no real damage to the mothership.

This is considerably less risky than testing a new concept, technology or business model company-wide, where it can be costly and damage the brand. Launching corporate ventures enables companies to test new ideas in a lean, controlled setting. This leads to new insights that can broaden your vision and provide insights that can be applied to your current market - enabling you to better serve your customer of tomorrow. When scouting out for new business opportunities, companies are forced to learn about new and emerging markets. This leaves these companies clinging to outdated offerings that could soon be made irrelevant by disruptive startups. Many fresh ideas in corporations are written off as “irrelevant because it’s not our core business”. Corporate ventures enable large companies to explore new opportunities with the same flexibility, autonomy and agility as startups. We’ve already gone through some of the factors that make it difficult for large corporations to innovate at the same speed startups do. We’ve outlined some of the benefits below: 1. They work like sounding boards, validating new technologies, products and services in small, controlled environments.Ĭorporate venturing is the key to speeding up innovation and financial growth in a rapidly changing market driven by disruptive startups. How corporate venturing can help.Ĭorporate ventures are a highly effective way to test out new ideas and concepts. This can be highly expensive and inefficient. The challenge is that many corporations have not yet optimised their approach and are still doing R&D the old-fashioned way (e.g.

There are plenty of lean and agile ways to test new concepts, including smoke testing, customer interviews and online surveys. Difficulty testing and validating new concepts. How corporate venturing can help.Ĭorporate venturing can help you bridge the generational gap with new business models, messaging and digital offerings. minimalism, sustainability, eco-friendliness, etc.). These days it’s all about convenient digital offerings, customised experiences, and a story that reflects the customer’s values (e.g. Large enterprises that have built their success on meeting traditional customer demands can have difficulty reaching and connecting with younger generations. Their small, flexible nature enables them to test out different growth marketing, branding and selling strategies to quickly pinpoint what works and weed out what doesn’t. How corporate venturing can help.Ĭorporate startups are a great way to experiment with new customer experiences without hurting your brand. This is becoming an increasingly significant trend as younger generations gain spending power (e.g. Customers are placing less value on actual products and leaning more towards companies that offer memorable experiences. What people consider to be a good customer experience is changing as quickly as the markets are. Corporations that build their own startups have direct access to these new technological advances, which can be leveraged to stay ahead of startup competitors. Startups are renowned for accessing, utilising and producing next-generation technologies. It’s a huge missed opportunity that smaller players can exploit to steal market share and gain a competitive edge. In addition, many corporations lack the know-how, initiative and exposure to technologies that can potentially revolutionise their industries. Testing out new technologies is hard within corporations because of their sheer size and the potential risks involved in making big changes at that scale. This enables them to experiment with new technologies, offerings and business models, quickly and efficiently, the same way startups do. How corporate venturing can help.Ĭorporate venturing helps enterprises bypass all the regulations and high chains of command by investing in independent ventures. This can be a challenge for corporations with strict rules and hierarchies that prevent fresh concepts from moving past the proverbial drawing board. adopting a new technology or business model or putting out a new offering), leaving competitors in the dust. A lack of agility.Įveryone wants to be the first to take advantage of new growth opportunities (i.e. To answer this question, we’ve listed some of today’s most common innovation challenges and how you can use corporate venturing to overcome them: 1.
