Digital city

How to fast-track innovation at scale

Belen Moscoso del Prado, Lopez-Doriga - Group Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Sodexo
About the author : Belen Moscoso del Prado, Lopez-Doriga

Group Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Sodexo

Published on : 4/27/21
  • Building an open-innovation ecosystem has been a focus for a large majority of global corporations in the service industry. For several years, integrating emerging technology and new business models has been in the works to better respond to evolving consumer needs and create differentiation.

    At Sodexo, we’ve long embraced an open-innovation mindset. We nourish the internal innovation from our teams using crowdsourcing and ideation platforms as well as capturing the best innovations from the outside through our global ecosystem of start-ups, such as with our Accelerator programs and Sodexo Ventures portfolio.

    It’s never been a problem of sourcing new solutions.  The difficulty lies in scaling up the solution across a large organization. Traditional governance challenges tied to legacy, adoption, and change management has often posed barriers to leveraging the potential of a fantastic new solution. Tackling bureaucracy has been a common hindrance to innovation at scale in big corporations.

    Then hit COVID.  Innovation is no longer just gradually moving along. It’s been fast-tracked to business imperative to ensure services meet the demands of the changing market and scale at a faster pace to ensure business continuation.

    Innovative food and workplace services

    The disrupted, fast-changing environment has been a catalyst to scale-up those innovations that were already in the works and our open-innovation ecosystem has been a key enabler to achieve this.  For instance, transforming our food service model was accelerated as our clients’ employees started working more remotely. The synergies between our onsite restaurants, restaurant cards, and local Foodtech startups, such as FoodCheri in France or Meican in China, enabled our teams to quickly provide clients with a 360° solution with more convenience and flexibility.   Another example is how our teams in Brazil launched a cloud kitchen model for delivery services in just one month.  Our Corp-ups (internal startups) are also a key force. Wx, one of the first Sodexo Corp-Ups, is helping us optimize the workplace experience through ethnography, Internet of Things (IoT) and data science to create smarter, more adaptable workplaces.

    Enhancing our health and safety capabilities

    The value of our open-innovation ecosystem has also allowed us to enhance our health and safety efforts with leading-edge technology. Our startup partnerships have boosted training programs, such as using virtual reality technology in safety training courses for our chefs which has led to a significant reduction in injuries. And most recently, we have incorporated the smart glasses technology in our remote-site services to support our health and safety experts keep people safe with remote risk management, audits, and inspections and training. This approach has been critical with the recent travel restrictions in place and is now being scaled-up across our various business sectors.

    Innovating as a large organization

    The pandemic has expediated innovation across the industry. It has been a disrupting force pushing us to take a fresh look at how we approach innovation at scale.  And we must not lose momentum on these new accelerated approaches going forward. The business value of open innovation can only be realized through scaling and adoption.

    It starts with putting the key stakeholders around the table to lay the foundations, set expectations and streamline processes. I recently participated in the kickoff event for the Scale-Up Europe, initiative launched by the French President to advance global tech leaders in Europe, on a panel focused on how to bridge the gaps between startups and large corporations.  It is important to open the discussions and work together to find ways to improve. Yet, there is no magic formula. It will be a continual learning curve and requires efforts on both sides.

    From the corporate leadership to the teams supporting our consumers each day, we should keep that sense of urgency to embrace change and the start-up mentality. I believe startups must also learn to adapt to the corporate environment ways of working so that we can come together in the middle to scale-up innovative solutions at a faster pace. Collaboration is the key word. We must continue to learn together in success as well as failure and fuel the open-innovation mindset to overcome business challenges both today and in the future.

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    This article was first published on the personal linked in account of Belen Moscoso del Prado, Lopez-Doriga, Group Chief Digital and Innovation Officer for Sodexo.

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