In the world of entrepreneurship we look with optimism and value initiatives such as the “company building”, a model of corporate innovation that occurs when large companies, consolidated and with years of experience, create startups internally to develop new business models. All this making use of the experience, resources, human talent and knowledge they already possess. Focusing directly on the development of new value propositions. It is often also encouraged to share experiences with new entrepreneurs and their fresh vision of the industry to assemble mixed equipment (thus avoiding corporate biases).
This concept already has several examples in more developed economies such as the United States and some countries in Europe. The good news is that little by little our country’s private sector is moving forward on this path and understanding that betting on corporate entrepreneurship can be a very good option. Let’s look at some examples: Engie Factory was the startup incubator of the energy company Engie, which with this initiative supported startups related to the world of sustainability, making them grow rapidly to transform them into companies that surprise and be a real contribution to the market. BCI created BCI Labs, a corporate accelerator that seeks to innovate in the Fintech ecosystem by recruiting startups to propose disruptive and innovative solutions for the banking industry.
There are more recent cases as well: Bice Ventures is part of the Bicecorp Group’s digital transformation and innovation strategy and is ad-portas to launch its first startup, focused on savings and investments. The idea is to form in the future a portfolio of digital brands that promote new digital businesses for the holding company. The Kauffman Group is doing its part with Goil, a project that internally develops solutions for the future of mobility that are focused on users and their needs, generating social, environmental, economic impact, and that have the potential for internationalization. For its part, Arauco is doing the same through the search process that, with the support of Socialab, they have carried out to find a founder who would like to enter this corporate company to lead a sustainability project.
It is very likely that, at the moment, another large Chilean company is planning how to align its growth strategy and link with the ecosystem to create new teams of corporate startups to hit the market. At a historic time for the pandemic economy such as today’s times, promoting the innovative capacity of work teams, approaching new technologies, and exploring new business models that solve people’s problems with the right timing is a big plus.
We are aware that there is still a long way to go, and there are many high management of companies that have not changed their more traditional mindset, nor do they understand that this is urgent and necessary. For them goes our message and the example of those who are already daring: collective knowledge will always be more valuable than self-centered vision. Let’s learn from the new generations, mix new ways of
to address the problems, let us be protagonists of a renewed culture of entrepreneurship for our country and future generations.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
