Case Studies

BMW Open Innovation

Objectives

Scouting top-notch Chinese start-ups for collaboration on both business and tech development with the aim to become the partner and early adopting venture client of selected startups.

Pain points

BMW did not have the connection with startups, entrepreneurs, community and network

Lack of experience in creating and managing Proof of Concepts, Pilots and Business cases together with startups

Ideation Workshop @BMW BeiJing

On Oct. 12th 2018, BMW Ideation Workshop was held in Beijing.

Together with colleague from 4 Bus（business unit）, we helped to better clarify the challenges and pain points faced by BMW

Nipa Mini Acceleration Program

NIPA | National IT Industry Promotion Agency, https://www.nipa.kr/

Goals

XNode worked with the 2 selected Korean startups on their business model localization and business partner meetings, helping them fully embedded in the market and accelerating their entry to China.

Participants

LIVE K is the Korean Culture Convergence Contents Creator. With this many show contents combined with CT such as Motion Graphic, Media Facade and Hologram, you can enjoy a perfect Korean Media Art, Holographic Show and splendid Interactive Media Show & Exhibition.
Datakobold is a subculture contents technology enterprise. We are currently serving the web-based web comics editing application ‘Boolatoon’, which aims to contribute to the creation of a sustainable creative environment and the development of the cultural industry.

Outcome

Article Recap: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PKjhmXHBFNl56NpZJt_dKg

Kering Innovation Workshop

50+ brand managers

Kering China and APAC

2-day innovation workshop in Shanghai (powered by Fabernovel and XNode)

Goals

To gather in-depth knowledge on pre-determined topics relevant to Kering group’s strategy and get inspired by best innovation practices in different fields and industries

Participants

Various brand managers from China and the APAC region, as well as innovation team from the group

Outcome

Identified trends and inspirations not only limited to luxury industry
Potential business challenges and opportunity identified with a follow-up by adopting new ideas for innovation within respective major brands of Kering
An ideation workshop in Hong Kong for 200+ Gucci store managers

L'Oréal Learning Expedition

12 executive managers

L'Oréal China R&I (Research and Innovation)

3-day learning expedition in Shenzhen & Guangzhou

Goals

An inspirational starting point to trigger the L'Oréal management team as industry leaders. How we can create a customer experience or lead new lifestyle / lifestyle shifts through L'Oréal products. Look for forward-thinking, innovative approaches, and fun experiences.

Participants

Management team from L'Oréal China R&I covering all product lines, HR, finance and communication.

Outcome

Getting opened to more external innovation and startup connection
3 internal initiatives to be carried out regarding new technology adoption and talent development

Intel GrowthX

About Intel GrowthX

Formerly known as Ideas2Reality, GrowthX is an innovation program at Intel China that helps our businesses grow inorganically and incrementally.

Each year, we explore dozens of new ideas and pick 10 best ideas to run through our award-winning acceleration program.

The program is sponsored by Ian Yang, Intel China President and Brent Young, VP & Director China Corporate Strategy Office and is truly a cross-BU, customer- centric and one Intel effort.

Impact on business

Over the past 3 years, GrowthX has explored 500+ ideas, accelerated 40+ projects, landing 9 ideas into the market creating an incremental revenue of $25M with an outlook of $275M over the next 5-year.

GAC-SOFINCO Scouting & Demo Day Program

The Project

Co-defining topics, requirements and criteria for evaluating startups
Scouting and assessing startups based on the requirements
Interviewing and shortlisting of potential startups based on the evaluation criteria
Organizing pitching workshops for startups in preparation for the Demo Day
Assist in creating marketing collaterals and supporting Demo Day preparations

Pitching Workshop

XNode organized 1-1 pitching workshop with the startups to refine their pitches and decks in preparation for the final demo day.

Demo Day

On November 8th 2019, GAC-SOFINCO’s demo day was held in Guangzhou with over 30 participants from different business units, and China CEO was one of the judges together with other BU heads. XNode was also invited to give a sharing about corporate innovation.

Final Pitch & Demo Day: 3 startups, 1 winner

Scania Disruptive Innovation Acceleration Program

From Building In-house to Leverage Outsider Knowledge to Co-build

‍New Products and Services

XNode worked with Scania internal BU and support teams to map out problems and issues that Scania want to tackle for current daily work and for future planning.

After problems and solutions are scoped, we co-picked 5 topics that can be further scouted after. The final goal is Scania BU will work closely with selected startups to co-create a PoC/ MVP for new market share acquisition and finance incremental. This will leads to real business impact generation in the end.

XNode plays the role as executor, facilitator and guider during the process of innovation strategy planning, program scoping, scouting and collaboration among startups and corporate.

Key Results for Scouting

1 month scouting in China

- From pre-A round to C round startup

‍58 startups are either being selected or showing interests

Only 3 startups are interviewed and picked to enter the 3-month acceleration program

- 3 startups collaboration model brief :

Startup A: Autonomous truck driving related algorithm and technology development in mining area.
Startup B: A new business manager SaaS for Scania customer (e.g. distributor, OEM and 3rd party vendor etc. ) to realize digitalization transformation.
Startup C: Helping Scania rental platform to increase efficiency during approval process with its AI algorithm and image recognition technology.

Osram 2019 X-pioneer

Building the OSRAM Engine of Innovation

XNode worked with OSRAM China BUs to scope and identify business opportunities. Together, 5 innovative ideas with clear pain points and opportunities were defined.

The goal of the X-Pioneer acceleration was to rapidly generate business impact for OSRAM. It also aims to leverage the speed and agility of startups in combination with the existing client network and resources of OSRAM to experiment with new business models.

The innovation journey started with ideation

XNode organized an ideation workshop with multiple BU teams to identify business challenges and opportunities for OSRAM.

At the end of the ideation session, outputs were:

High potential technologies and innovations for implementation
Relevant business challenges and opportunities
Preliminary project roadmap for acceleration

Demo Day

On May 27th 2020, X-Pioneer demo day was held in Shanghai with over 40 participants from different business units including smart lighting, automotive, and smart city.

Unilever HZL Inside-out Program

Project objectives

Reviving Hazeline Brand through internal incubation & acceleration
Adopt and apply a completely new entrepreneurial process and mindset
Accelerate the process of prototyping and building MVP to go to market
Create and validate a new business model which is applicable for Hazeline

Our solution

Tailor made acceleration program with lean startup methodology
EIR coaching by industry experts and serial entrepreneurs

Innovation Programs

Our practice-proven programs

Internal & External Accelerators

Learning Expedition

Reverse Mentoring

Let's talk about your innovation goals

Case Studies

BMW Open Innovation

Nipa Mini Acceleration Program

Kering Innovation Workshop

L'Oréal Learning Expedition

Intel GrowthX

GAC-SOFINCO Scouting & Demo Day Program

Scania Disruptive Innovation Acceleration Program

Osram 2019 X-pioneer

Unilever HZL Inside-out Program