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As much as technology and globalization open new markets and forge the potential for new business models, it also fuels new competition and creates unanticipated complications that companies need to navigate. Markets are burgeoning in places beyond the rich, industrialized nations. Contemporary companies face a radically changed environment. In the middle of a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world, there are tons of choices to be made and technology is driving this change. For a large corporation, it is becoming increasingly challenging to reimagine value creation for the future as in this VUCA world big firms need to think and play beyond resources to make the shift.
According to a PwC report 60 per cent of global CEOs said that their current business model will vanish in the next ten years. Explaining the same, Manpreet Singh Ahuja, chief digital officer, PwC India, said, “It’s a telling reflection of the present scenario, as a practitioner what hits me is the complacent nature of the rest 40 per cent, if companies don’t innovate with time it will no longer be of relevance in the coming years.”
If a company wants to thrive in the long run, creating an environment of innovation is the only solution, “The speed of innovation varies with different organizations as it depends on the culture of the company. We need to create a culture where every idea is welcomed, an organization’s value is dependent on all its employees,” said Amit Grover, SVP, Sales and Strategy, Binmile.
Sharing a similar opinion, Abhishek Dugar, Investments lead, Wipro Ventures, said, “When the leadership is willing to accept new ideas, even when in doubt, employees walk up to the leaders to share their thoughts, this expands the scope of acceptance,” adding that innovations should be part of the core business and not at the periphery.
Wipro Ventures bridges the gap between emerging startups and enterprise customers. Established in 2015 as the strategic investment arm of Wipro Limited, it invests in early to mid-stage companies building innovative enterprise software solutions.
As American professor Henry Chesbrough said, “The sooner we realize that not all of the smart people in the world work for us, the better, as this will drive you to innovate within your company.” Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic shift in the way large companies and startups work together. Startups harness their agility to identify new market opportunities but often struggle to scale. On the other hand, corporations have successfully scaled but can miss new market opportunities.
“You need to figure out the potential gaps which can turn out to be profitable in the future. Our venture funds invest in new age D2C companies, this helps us learn the new business models and newer market strategies,” Dugar explained. Sharing an example, Dugar said that investing in MyGlamm Group has been one of their top investments. “We had to take the founders on board and interact with our own marketing team. That’s the power of collaborations.”
What about companies which are not as large as MNCs? How should they view the startup ecosystem, “It can be of two types, first, we build solutions for startups and second, we collaborate with startups which have built solutions in specific areas and bring them together to develop a larger solution,” Gover added. If you can’t invest, at least collaborate!
Partnerships offer access to new markets and customers, they lower development costs, provide valuable insights into experimental technologies and accelerate innovation. The panelists were speaking at Entrepreneur 2023 Summit in New Delhi.
