06: The value of external partners
In mid 2020 we sat down with a group of the countries most recognised and experienced corporate innovation leaders for their unfiltered and honest view of key industry issues. They represented both clients, customers and agencies servicing the industry.
Anthony Johnston
CEO at CoVentured
Bringing in external partners to an Innovation Program can be very important, if you have a resource challenge, a capability challenge, or a capacity challenge. And it tends to be one of those three or two of those three, where external bodies can help external resource. The challenge with internal resourcing is it’s accustomed to a certain way of working. And that way of working may not gel with what your outcome is. External parties can help you with that.
The best way to get an external party and internal parties working together is to be really clear on what it is you’re trying to achieve, each other’s capabilities and be the steps you’re going to take together.
Colin Weir
CEO at Moroku
Companies can’t go it alone when it comes to innovation because they don’t understand the failing culture. Their entire businesses are based on success. Their entire performance, management system, HR systems, marketing, sales or whatever business function they’re all based on judging success.
Daniel Biondi
CTO at DXC
I don’t believe that we can innovate by ourselves. And to do that you need to foster a rich ecosystem of people, partners and technology. And the combination of all that is going to bring what you need to solve a business problem for a customer.
There is always a natural desire to want to build something yourself but realistically, there’s a number of shortcuts you can take in order to get to the same outcome. If you really embrace open innovation by working with Startups, Scaleups, and with universities, outcomes can come sometimes a lot cheaper, a lot more efficiently, and a lot more effectively.
Lorraine Thomas
Chief Officer, Product & Innovation at HCF Australia
External partners bring fresh ideas, alternative perspectives, and also credibility. Sometimes when we’re focused internally, we don’t always have all the answers. So it’s great to have experts in the room that can actually bring credibility to the idea.
David Parfett
ex Qantas and Scentre group innovation Strategy and venture leader
External partners are a really helpful part of the overall answer when it comes to corporate innovation. They bring fresh perspectives, they can challenge the status quo, and they can bring in subject matter expertise that the existing organization might not just have from within.
Melissa Witheriff
Head of Digital Innovation CUA
We’ve had local, national, and international partners in terms of innovation to help us uplift our capability, capacity, and speed to market. And so those partners bring a really rich insight into product-market fit. They have access to amazing network of FinTech, startups, and scaleups. And have ways to help us think differently as a corporate organization.
Pierre-Alexandre Schaupp
Innovation and Strategy at News Corp
I really recommend to engage with the external partners because they bring three key things on the table. They enable you to benchmark yourself against your competitors, which is very important, they bring tools of, like, methodology that have been proven by other companies, and also they bring their network of partners to the table.
