Contrary to what you might think from reading most media headlines, it’s not just the service sector that is being transformed by digitalisation. Industry is also facing a new revolution of its own due to digitalization. This is the reason why we wanted to dedicate this Co-Session to what is happening and is about to happen in industrial innovation and in relation to the so-called Industry 4.0.
When suddenly the number of global corporations lunching programs to collaborate with startups reach 1.000, to choose just one with a particular interest becomes a difficult task. But Unilever Foundry is an easy choice. Beyond its impressive numbers, the Anglo-Dutch consumer packaged goods company wants from startups something else that just insights into new technologies and trends.
If one year ago we clearly felt at 4YFN that collaboration and co-innovation was “on the air”, this year these were the main topics, especially regarding the relationship between start-ups and consolidated companies. We also learned the number of global corporations that already launched some sort of program or initiative to collaborate with startups reached 1.000.
A picture of Apple’s CEO standing in front an IBM sign flipping the bird became one of the many icons furnishing Steve Jobs mythology. That’s why maybe not many other cases prove as irrefutably as the unlikely Apple-IBM partnership “IBM MobileFirst for iOS” that organizations have definitively started to understand and appreciate the value and need of collaboration.
Probably few collaboration frameworks became so rapidly popular and inspired so many projects as the one coined as “Collective Impact”. Created for collaboration on social challenges, we don’t see why not their principles could also be applied as well to collaboration between companies with a common business goal.