Companies worldwide are forever having conversations about innovation and how to “reinvent themselves by thinking like a startup,” notes Jason Williamson, vice president of Oracle’s new Scaleup Ecosystem program. Easier said than done, he said during a panel discussion at SXSW Interactive in Austin.
“Unless you’ve had to forgo your salary to pay your team or even wonder how you’re going to get to SXSW in your uncle’s broken-down car, you don’t understand the drive to innovate that leaders of startups have,” he said.
But partnering with startups can give enterprises a shortcut to innovation, said panelist Olly Downs, CEO and chief scientist of Amplero, which helps companies use artificial intelligence to improve their customer interactions. Amplero is Downs’ ninth startup.
“It’s very common for enterprises to have an innovation team, which often is separate from the main company to free it from the process and infrastructure burdens that enterprises have,” he said during the panel discussion. “But the challenge is that working in a silo doesn’t help them get close to customers. The best innovation teams are coupled with their business, or even better, with the business’s enterprise customers.”
As part innovation enabler, part mentor, and part enterprise/startup matchmaker, Oracle’s virtual-style Scaleup Ecosystem program, launched in February, gives select late-stage startups access to enterprise-grade cloud services, business and marketing mentors, and some of Oracle’s more than 400,000 customers and partners. The program is now accepting applications from startups worldwide.
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“A lot of Fortune 1000 companies ask us how they can be more innovative and now, through this startup accelerator, we can connect them with startups that are taking new approaches and tackling business problems in new ways,” said Williamson, who previously helped launch private-equity ecosystem initiatives at Amazon Web Services.
Seeding an Innovation Culture
An attitude of innovation has to start with senior leadership, said panelist Caroline Barton, founder of Modatrova, a company started in September to connect emerging fashion brands with consumers.
“When we have a new idea, we don’t deliberate—we do it and see quickly if it will work,” Barton said. “That’s part of the culture at Modatrova, and it starts at the top. I want to create an environment for my team members to be comfortable about throwing out ideas and trying something new—and not be afraid to fail. Things may not go to plan, but we handle the unpredictability.”
The dichotomy of needing to have dogged perseverance and persistence but at the same time being adaptable and open to feedback is a challenge, Amplero’s Downs said.
“The market isn’t going to tell you your vision is right until it can see what you’re producing,” he said. “A vision is not tangible to the people buying from you—or investing in you. You have to be able to push, but also to listen to feedback and see where it’s coming from and adapt.”
Modatrova invites its community of consumers to vote on which emerging brands’ fashions to add to its website, giving the company and its brand partners insights into market preferences. Barton envisions offering this approach to retailers as a subscription service.
“We stay in constant conversation with brands, advisers, customers, and partners about whether what brands are building is something that is wanted by their target market,” Barton said. “We also listen to the emerging brands and to our partners about what problems they need solved.”
Whether your company is large or small—or a large company trying to reignite a small-company innovative culture—it’s important to have leaders who constantly encourage new thinking, the panelists at SXWS said.
“The key to getting people to buy into an idea in business is figuring out where their lever is,” Oracle’s Williamson said. “To gain their support, I need to be able to map how they’ll benefit in a way they care about. If I can show them that a certain innovation will help the organization succeed, and how it will help them to succeed, I will be far more likely to gain their support.”
Margaret Harrist is director of content strategy and implementation at Oracle.
