Engaging startups in your digital transformation strategy???
Femi Longe
#Bitcoin | Service Design | Strategic Partnerships | Future of Work & Learning | Social Innovation | Digital Transformation | Startup Engagement
In the spirit of mining some good from the current global pandemic, the economic lockdowns, and the looming recession one cannot fail to recognize the positive effect on digital transformation across industries and sectors.
Even the most digitally laggard sectors like education, healthcare, and manufacturing, who act as if physical presence is critical to getting work done, have had to rapidly adjust.
I guess, we would be amazed how much we can accomplish and how rapidly objections evaporate when we don't have much of a choice. I wish we could bring the same energy to the big problems of our time (climate change & youth unemployment in Africa).
A friend who heads IT at an FMCG giant in Nigeria reported a 5X increase in use of collaboration tools compared to pre-COVID. Hold out senior leaders who had hitherto resisted the wave of digitization are suddenly rushing into its embrace.
But the digitization efforts need to be sustained and somewhere in the mix must be a deliberate strategy to engage startups. Local startups can ride this wave of receptiveness to digital to push their solutions which add value and key into the local nuances and cultural peculiarities that solutions made in Silicon Valley may not.
Large corporations who are smart will do well to articulate how they want to engage these startups. It makes economic sense and provides a glimpse into what's coming next given the local situation. Simply visiting an innovation hub with senior management or organizing a hackathon for PR or FOMO sake is not enough.
Startups can contribute to your immediate and future bottom-line and competitiveness. Their solutions can be effective across every single sphere of your operations. Engaging them should, therefore, be taken very seriously.
Does your company have a DELIBERATE & CLEARLY ARTICULATED strategy for engaging startups? Share with me in the comments below.
#DigitalTransformation #Strategy #Startup #StartupEngagement #COVID19 #business #Digital
Digital Transformation Lead at Holcim
4 å¹´Fully agree Femi Longe. We are doing exactly this with LH Startup MAQER. What do you think? Philipp Leutiger Bengt Steinbrecher
Convener Africa Digital Economy Summit
4 å¹´I think the problem is that Large corporates are very slow and difficult to change largely because most of them do not have digital natives on their board thus making it difficult for them to anticipate the future. To have a robust startup engagement strategy, companies must think exponential opportunities versus incremental outcomes. To achieve this, corporates must begin to think about ecosystem, this will enable them to see the need for partnering with people/startups that can help them achieve their core objectives because we need to leverage on the efficiency of others since you can't be an expert in everything. Your question certainly will challenge how we are going to collaborate in the future, a lot of corporates are struggling why there are a lot of startups down the road with the solutions to their problems. How then do we bring startup in our business? Simple, go around and figure out one startup with an idea to fix your problem. It is easier to change a startup than a corporate organization(organizational inertia). Corporates should learn to let go of the benefits of today, so that they can be prosperous tomorrow by having a heritage organization and a startup.
Instructional Design ? Science Literacy Advocacy
4 å¹´I'm curious why corporates don't acquire or acquihire more startups in Nigeria. I can speculate but will like to know for a fact. I think that same dynamic will influence whether corporates engage startups in digital transformation