Innovation lab case study- World’s largest automobile manufacturer

Situation:

Our client is the world’s largest 2-wheeler manufacturer. The organisation has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years by introducing new & innovative practices across functional & business lines. The R&D function has been able to churn out some remarkable innovations in products & processes in collaboration with global IVY League business schools and is currently working on a few breakthrough projects. The top leadership team believes that in order to sustain their strong market share and grow exponentially, the organisation should focus on building further its innovation capability & capacity and incubate 2 identified challenges which are believed to disrupt the industry and set new benchmarks for the organization.

Outcome Expected :

The client expects the impact at two levels-

Short term (6 months)

• One of the identified challenge to result in a new business line with a complete strategic plan of execution including a strong eco-system to sustain

Long term

• Develop innovation mindset and culture in the organisation
• Set-up of a dedicated innovation engine functioning at an organisation level and catering to multiple innovation projects across functions
• Organisation growth in terms of new products & services
• Enhancement of the brand perception of the organisation
• Capability & capacity building of multiple groups of people on innovative mind-set, innovation tools, ideation & incubation

Action:

 The 60-day program involved the accelerator and engaging two different teams with two different set of challenges with the goal of making a pitch to the chairman and a key investor to spawn two possible business units from the accelerator and incubating the solutions shortlisted by respective innovation teams. The 60 day intensive innovation lab, grounded in globally validated cutting edge tools & frameworks, included assessments on Whole Brain Thinking & Entrepreneurship. It also included experiential reflective labs based on principles of design thinking, customer journeys, neuroscience and action learning. The focus was on applying Whole Brain Thinking, Ideation Techniques and various tools and techniques of innovation in the real challenges.

The journey was divided into 3 broad phases-

• Foundational– The design comprised of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ based visioning & expectation alignment workshop at the sponsor, stakeholder & participant level. This was followed by 2 assessments to baseline and understand the development areas aligned to the organisation context.
• Building blocks– Comprised of experiential innovation labs introducing & binding the knowledge on values, culture, Whole Brain Thinking & Beyonder creativity, 7 traits of an innovator, lean start-up, Design Thinking, SIT, pitching events & Hot-Housing.
• Momentum– Group & team coaching to anchor & align the learning from the different phases of the project.

Result 

The initial session (Vision & strategic intent) for the sponsors & stakeholders was a discovery session to align the stakeholders along a shared intent . A similar alignment session was done with the cohort to align their hopes & concerns. A series of interviews with the managers and peers of the participants revealed facts about the feeling of pride regarding the initiative and an eagerness to be a part of this elite group of individuals who will be taking the organisation to greater heights.

The cohort went through 2 assessments to map their whole brain (highlighting an individual’s thinking styles and the preferred way the individual wanted to think) and entrepreneurial potential (an important consideration for the organisation as it wanted to quickly move into incubation).

How did the team use Whole Brain Thinking and Beyonder creativity models for their business challenges:

• Whole Brain Thinking laid a foundation by looking at the challenge statement from all quadrants of the brain (Why it is important to work on this, who all should be involved, what is out there and what is the available research and then finally structuring with a plan & how to approach it)
• Team understood how different they are from each other w.r.t their thinking preferences of the members and how they can make a whole-brain team. The leveraged the brain preferences to assign roles in their teams as well .
• The module on Beyonder creativity helped the cohort move away from ordinary thinking and be in Beyonder zone of creativity. They leveraged multiple models of Beyonder to ideate more on their challenges and came up with ideas which they never thought earlier. We moved the cohort to think boldly and show up as above the line individual every day.

We challenged the teams to identify multiple customer viewpoints and ideate iteratively to come up with creative & value enabling solutions, based on the application of their work experiences and ideation methodology techniques (such as Design Thinking, SIT, Break-the-Assumption, and more). We helped them manage the innovation funnel processing of ideas, applying gateways for idea selection and progression based on best practice innovation management processes. We helped in the shortlisting of the best ideas and application of best practice methodologies for idea examination and selection. Post the idea selection, team was taken through presence and pitching labs in order to prepare them to pitch their ideas to management. Cohort spent time understanding on what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how they can bring in those attitude and skills to their day to day working as well.

Unlike standardised workshops, the innovation journey was very engaging as it encompassed all hands-on working sessions. The teams stayed above the line through energisation exercises, workouts and built-in creative conversations on abstract topics. The result of the 3 month journey culminated in a successful pitch presentation to the managing director of the company and approval for the seed money to kick-off the 2 shortlisted projects by the organisation and build their POC. These 2 projects spun off into 2 new separate business units which are fully functioning on their own now.

Start a conversation with us