How to innovate like a start-up

Start-ups typically dream of growing to the scale where they have offices around the world. At the same time, corporations lust after the innovation they see abundant in entrepreneurial ventures. But is there a way to bring the two sides closer together?

One of the few things we can be sure of is “the way we have been doing business in the past 10 years, is not the way we will be doing business in the next 10 years”, according to Gary Dushnitsky, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School, speaking at a roundtable event in Paris.

 

1. Platform for change

 

Launching new platforms and controlling ecosystems are strategic enablers of innovation, he says. Amazon’s move into the home with Alexa is a case in point. Creating a platform around voice recognition allowed Amazon to sidestep – even leapfrog – the competition.

 

The behemoths of home technology like Apple, Microsoft and Google might have seen off a challenge around a new type of smartphone or PC. This would have been a fight on their terms. Instead, Amazon chose to open a new front – one where the incumbents didn’t enjoy an entrenched advantage. The result: Amazon rapidly embedded itself in the home tech ecosystem as a peer alongside more established rivals.

 

“We all talk about platforms. Everybody wants to orchestrate the ecosystem,” observes Dushnitsky. “This all sounds very nice, but how do you actually do it?”