case describes Suzano’s efforts in innovation and how “innovability” permeates the entire company, creating new business opportunities for the future. These include solutions to various challenges centred on planting eucalyptus, which has short fibres, and the trading of pulp and paper. It shows how Suzano combines efficient execution with sustainable practices while continuing to be competitive globally.
– Enel Green Power. On the innovation side, each of the business lines has its own R&D unit, and there is a lack of communication between business and R&D as well as across different R&D units. The strategy of the company and the approach to innovation changes in 2014, when the president of Enel Green Power, Francesco Starace, is appointed the CEO of the Enel Group. At the beginning of his tenure, Starace chooses an innovation consultant with vast cross-industry experience, Ernesto Ciorra, as his chief Innovability officer. With this title, Ciorra assumes responsibility for innovation and sustainability for the entire group. After setting this context, the case follows the work of Ciorra and his innovation team as they build an innovation organization at Enel headquarters and business lines. It describes the actions and campaigns used to instill an innovation and sustainability mindset and norms in the traditional, risk-averse culture of an established utility. It provides an overview of the (open) innovation tools developed and used at Enel and zooms in on the use of the venture client model – an approach in which innovation is fostered by nurturing start-ups as suppliers and partners as opposed to offering them equity investment. The second part of the case elucidates the process of innovation at Enel, step by step. It begins with the challenge setting, identification of the solutions proposed by the start-ups and other ‘solvers’, definition of the proof of concept and, lastly, scaling. At each stage, practical challenges are presented, and the quotations of the heads of innovation at various business lines explain the challenges of innovating in an established corporation and how they are resolved. The case study ends with consideration of subsequent steps. Ciorra seems pleased with the objectives accomplished so far but can only surmise what the next steps of Innovability should be. This case is part of the CBS free case collection.
However, there was no real innovation activity. In 2015, not only the aspirations of the new management but also the exponential pace of technology and the raised pressure to win on the field pushed FC Barcelona to ‘up its game’ and move from research and knowledge management to collaborative innovation projects. In 2020, when the case study was developed, FC Barcelona has been busy executing its vision to become the ‘Silicon Valley of sports’, supported by its innovation unit called Barca Innovation Hub or Bihub, for short.
the pressures of population growth, and demographic change. No wonder corporate executives, emerging entrepreneurs, and public sector leaders lie awake at night worrying about how they can make their organisations better at what they do, more successful, and more resilient.
innovation produced a number of valuable concepts, at product and firm level, including innovation portfolio mapping, innovation roadmaps, the innovation funnel, stage-gate innovation and, more recently, open innovation.
transactions and activities are just starting to enter academic discourse through research on business models. Our research on the business model evolution of 12 complex service providers points to strong interconnectedness between boundary choices; all of the firms we studied engaged in the simultaneous extension of transactions on the demand/customer side and the supply/supplier-partner side. For example, a firm moved from providing one service on an ad-hoc basis to guaranteeing the outcome associated with a number of services; to deliver this outcome, it deepened relationships with suppliers and entered into new partnerships for complementary resources. Firms configured the transaction and activity nexus – the business model – to reap value on the demand side (e.g. customer’s economies of scope) as well as the supply side (e.g. resource complementarities and transaction efficiency). This value-creating spiral comes at a price though; by extending transactions on both sides, the firm extends its accountability for a (growing) solution, while loses control over its provision to the ecosystem. We argue that firms need to set their business models so as to balance this ‘accountability spread’ while maximizing enduring sources of value on the demand and supply sides.