Pioneers Discover is excited to announce that it will contribute its experience to a major two-year Business Ecosystems workshop program at the Helvetia Innovation Lab (University of St. Gallen) in Switzerland.
The Project, which launches today and ends in November 2019, aims to define practical approaches for establishing and managing Business Ecosystems. We will take part in the full international program as one of the Lab’s selected expert partners.
Business Ecosystems are defined as ‘a network of multilateral linked companies, such as suppliers and distributors, who interact with each other, primarily complementing or supplying key components of the value propositions within their products or services.’
That being so, the University of St Gallen’s Institute of Technology Management sees Business Ecosystems as a trend worthy of increasing attention. The Institute of Technology Management is one of Europe’s top business schools and leading European research and consulting institutions for the management and use of innovation and technology.
The Institute believes that Business Ecosystems support innovation, enhance profitability and drive market advantage. This applies most obviously to emerging fields such as Internet of Things and Industry 4.0, but has a relevance to businesses in almost any area.
And as we know very well at Pioneers Discover, even large corporates cannot keep pace with every aspect of technology all on their own. With networks of cooperation of such importance going forward, the university has chosen Business Ecosystems of the subject of this major workshop series. The ultimate aim of the two-year Program is to define practical approaches to establishing and managing Business Ecosystems, including a management toolbox that will enable partners to establish their own.
11 corporate partners from various industries have chosen to reap the benefits of joining the program, and Pioneers Discover will contribute its expertise to the thematic workshop on startups. The Institute will run six workshops during the course of 2018. These will cover Business Ecosystem Establishment, Strategy, Management and Technology. We’ll also remain on board next year, when the program moves to four add-on events including Exchange, Elevator Pitches and a final closing in November.
“This Project is a perfect match for our expertise in growing innovation through cooperation and collaboration,” says Pioneers Discover Program Manager Anton Schilling. “Ensuring quality connections between companies is not only central to building a successful Business Ecosystem, but also central to so much of the consultancy work for which we’re known.
“We’ve got a vast body of experience in this area, as well as plenty of varied real-world cases on which we can draw. We think we’ll be able to contribute plenty of valuable input to the Project and we’re excited to be taking part in such a program. It’s a terrific milestone in our story at Pioneers Discover.”
In addition to the partnering corporates and experts including Pioneers Discover, startups will also take part in the Project. And beyond the rich insights the project will deliver, partners will benefit from a trust-based exchange of experience and networking. The Institute of Technology Management will define the program and participants.
Our participation in the project in St. Gallen, an attractive town and seat of learning that’s home to a baroque monastery with an world-famous library, is not the first time Pioneers Discover will travel to Switzerland to share its expertise. Last year our consultancy arm ran the Alpine Tourism Hack in St Moritz, in which startups developed rapid prototypes for the tourism industry in the Südbunden region.
