Embracing Disruption - The strategic imperative of collaboration

The rapid pace at which technology is advancing is disrupting the way we live. Through application of artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality and Internet of things, innovative startups are continuously designing better and even cost-efficient ways to do things. Disruption has visited almost every industry today and businesses are compelled to rethink and reinvent the customer experience. Or they will become obsolete.

To remain relevant in the marketplace, collaboration in this ever changing, disruptive technological environment is more relevant than it has ever been. A 2017 Unilever Foundry global study and whitepaper, ‘The State of Innovation’, confirms this:

• 80 per cent of corporates believe startups can have a positive impact on a large company’s approach to innovation
• 46 per cent of startups that have not worked with corporates are likely to do so in the future
• 89 per cent startups believe they’re able to deliver business solutions, which can scale

It also “predicts corporates and startups will form the ultimate partnership, working side by side in the same physical space by 2025, seeking greater proximity for innovation as they evolve to meet changing consumer needs”.

In launching the study, Unilever’s executive vice-president for global marketing Aline Santos said, “Collaboration can no longer be viewed as an optional extra, it’s a strategic imperative. Startups are now widely recognized as invaluable sources of innovation, fuelling growth and providing pioneering business solutions”.

This strategic imperative helped Nike in 2000 to introduce groundbreaking technology in a shoe. Employing an automotive company’s jounce bumper design for Formula 1 cars, the Nike Shox gave athletes the feeling of propulsion.

In fact, many industries such as oil and gas, airports, pharmaceutical and healthcare have been working with Formula 1 and using its technologies to deliver better outcomes (https://bit.ly/2hcqM9l). At Birmingham Children's Hospital, McLaren’s telemetries help doctors monitor and treat patients, especially in life-threatening events (https://bit.ly/30Bqlcl).

 At AkzoNobel we constantly innovate to keep our coating and paint products at the forefront of the industry. Our biocide-free antifouling coating product, Intersleek, has helped ship owners save over $3 billion of fuel and 32 million tons of CO2 since it was launched in 1996.

We have now teamed up with Royal Phillips, one of the world’s leading technology, electronics and UV-LED lighting companies, to revolutionize this product. With our cutting-edge surface protection and adhesion know-how and their peerless expertise, we are innovating protective coating with diodes that emits UV light to prevent biofouling accumulating on the hulls of ships. This will result in further savings in fuel and CO2.

Collaboration, for sure, is challenging the practice of acquisitions, which attempts to bolster a company’s leadership and technological position in an industry. A growing proportion of corporations now seek flexible upstream partnerships with startups, in which both sides take risk and share in the rewards (Imaginatik-MassChallenge research 2016). The trend is towards early stage interactions.

But strategic fit is paramount. Before collaborating, both corporations and startups must understand what they are aiming to solve. Will it cut costs or boost margins for the corporation? Does it help them gain a strategic presence in a new technology or market?

These are important questions to consider. At AkzoNobel we understand these issues and launched “Paint the Future” challenge in partnership with KPMG for innovators early this year. It is open to startups, scale-ups, early stage tech companies and institutes around the world. Our collaborative approach puts the world’s coolest innovators in touch with expert advice, resources and connections to help accelerate, test, launch and scale ideas.

In the 2019 edition that concluded in May, six companies from the United States, Netherlands and United Kingdom came up top (https://bit.ly/2JC4JHq) and won either joint development or business agreements with us.

Our collaboration with them will innovate solutions for:

• Smart coatings
• Automated printing head for coating large surfaces
• Di-block polymers that tune surface functionality
• Autonomous drones
• Turning waste into bio-oils and minerals
• Digital solutions for inspections

Disruptive technology is turning the wheels of innovation, as fast as new ideas become reality. Embracing it and working in partnership with enterprising startups has become mission critical for corporations that want to stay in the game.