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Businesses globally were severely impacted by the pandemic. Those that struggled to adapt suffered. However, organisations where the internal culture was primed to innovate were able to overcome the challenge and even prosper, writes Michael O’Dwyer (pictured), Technology Partner at BearingPoint Ireland.

Many companies now recognise that changes that they viewed as too difficult or not workable, such as having their teams working remotely, can be achieved. Developing and keeping the innovation spirit alive and turning challenges into opportunities will be an ongoing challenge for organisations.

Standing still is not an option for any organisation, no matter how successful their existing business model has been. Disruption is unavoidable, and whether it is Covid, technological developments or another external influence, the ability to adapt at pace in future will separate the winners from the losers.

A case in point is BearingPoint itself. We began adapting our model some years ago, and we now supplement our traditional consulting and delivery model with a hybrid asset-driven consulting approach.

The result is an ever-expanding suite of ready-made assets designed to empower companies to move rapidly when a more traditional approach is not feasible. This approach to light-touch consulting enables us to deliver value-creating solutions to our clients, which are accelerated through our assets that are proven in the field.

Hub of Innovation

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We have years of experience and knowledge accumulated while working on consulting projects, identifying challenges and developing solutions. As a result, we can spot similar challenges across many diverse industries.

We have put in place an Innovation Governance Process that encourages our people to come forward with challenges they identify in their day-to-day work with customers and register them on our  Hub of Innovation tool. Those that resonate with colleagues are moved through our innovation funnel, where they undergo a series of experiments, prototyping, testing and validation.

This is supported by a culture where our people are encouraged to innovate. We run regular internal open-calls, hackathons and Dragon’s Den events, where funding is available to scale assets that have demonstrated desirability, viability and feasibility in pilot customer trials.

The proof of how successful this has been rests in the wide number of assets we have developed to date, including our Emissions Calculator and Retail Footprint Optimisation asset.

Emissions Calculator This asset is currently being used by a number of organisations to highlight where in their production and supply chain they can reduce their carbon emissions.

For example, Wipak, a global supplier of packaging solutions and services, is now able to accurately calculate its carbon emissions across the entire product life-cycle process using our tool.

Retail Footprint Optimisation This asset is being used by large retail customers across several industries. It leverages information from internal and external sources of data to highlight the level of footfall in retail outlets, and supports analysis that helps our clients decide which stores to expand, which to redesign or to close.

Our experience proves that you must have a deliberate approach to innovation. You need to align processes, people and culture to be successful. I am happy to show organisations our detailed innovation process, as well as share our tools.

Michael O’Dwyer
Email: Michael.odwyer@bearingpoint.com
Telephone: +353 1 418 1189 / +353 86 179 1189
bearingpoint.com/en-ie/