Shortcut 5 of 5: From Idea to Impact: Entrepreneurial Partnerships.

The number of Global Capability Center (GCC)s in India has increased significantly from 750 in 2010 to 1,750 in 2020. GCCs in India are expected to grow to a USD 110 billion market by 2030[i][1], with 2,400 to 2,550 GCCs operating in the country. Innovation and entrepreneurship can play a significant role in evolution from cost-saving operation to strategic hubs for driving digital transformation and business growth. Despite the uniqueness of each organization, there are few cross-cutting observations, learnings and shortcuts available to accelerate the journey of capability center to Innovation Oasis. Let us walk through the Top 5 shortcuts to foster the innovation culture in a Global capability center (GCC):

*The 5 key shortcuts are distributed among Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 of the article.

Entrepreneurial Partnerships promote innovation and new ventures through collaboration and partnerships by sharing knowledge, resources, expertise, and responsibilities to achieve a common goal. Partnerships can be built internally and externally. Building a ‘start-up’ culture using different approaches like Lean startup methodology is an example of internal entrepreneurial partnership.

Experiment with various initiatives to invite innovative ideas, solicit them and promote the promising idea to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product).  Roll out creative initiatives by incentivizing through funding, mentorship and rewards. Such initiatives can lead to new product development, process improvements, and increased competitiveness. 

Startups offer excellent external entrepreneurial partnership opportunities.  Leverage the expertise and agility of startups to solve real business problems improve the time to market significantly.  Providing the ‘business connect’ and mentorship to the startups results in more customer centric innovation opportunities. Collaboration with startups results in symbiotic partnerships resulting in promotion of agility and innovation within the GCC.

Innovation hubs are broader in scope, aiming to create a dynamic ecosystem for startups, researchers, and industry partners. Innovation hubs can act as incubation centers to provide physical and digital space for thinking ‘out of the box’.

They can act as the ‘meet up’ space for research and experimentation. These setups seed new ideas and provide the playground for ‘learn fast’ approach through faster idea generation, enhanced creativity and continuous improvement. Not every idea makes it to the finish line. According to existing literature ,  only 6%  of all “official ideas” and 14 percent of promising ideas that reach a development phase become commercial successes.  It is important to celebrate the effort and not just the outcome. Setting up innovation hubs within GCC highlights the intent of prioritizing Innovation and promote the ‘start up’ mindset.

Universities offer access to a high aptitude, motivated and highly energized talent pool. Partnership with Universities and educational institutes boost ‘research’ based innovation.

Universities bring in fresh perspectives driven by technological trends. Inviting senior faculties for speaker sessions and vice versa opens channels for knowledge exchange. Hackathon initiatives with students bring in creative perspectives on the age-old industry problems.

Such external engagements enrich the GCCs innovation capabilities to help stay ahead of market trends.

By experimenting with the Top 5 shortcuts, GCCs can build a vibrant innovative culture that drives business growth, operational excellence and global competitiveness. You are welcome to collaborate with your observations and learnings in the comments.

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