Local-led innovation: IBL’s vision to create real market value

As the collaboration with Startegyzer unfolded, the task at hand was to develop an innovation blueprint in-house for IBL group which could then be customised & scaled across the different divisions and business units. There was also a recognition that understanding of the local context, culture and challenges was important in developing such a blueprint.

To deliver on this vision, a series of discussions with a wider stakeholder group comprising of leaders from major business units were carried out. The aim was, with the help of Strategyzer, to build an innovation approach that would have flexible components within a rigorous structure hence enabling business units to adapt the approach to their own context. However, the end goal was to implement each component of the blueprint in real-life. The Seafood Cluster volunteered itself as the first use case. The Discovery program was launched and teams were taken by Alvinesh through a series of sprints as per the process defined in the Blueprint. He coached them until they were ready for their final pitch in front of a panel.

The support provided to coaches is of utmost importance, and I can vouch for its value based on my own experience. It's not just about the software; it's the entire ecosystem, including learning resources, tools, and books, that makes a world of difference.”

Alvinesh Jugun

Innovation Manager, IBL

As teams went through the discovery program, the mindset started shifting from a focus on exploitation to experimentation. Furthermore, it encouraged cross-collaboration between different teams from different business units thus helping teams test their ideas faster.

From research to out-of-the-building

The leaders from the Seafood Cluster acknowledged that some ideas for innovation had to be handled in a different way. It was the process of working through these ideas and de-risking them that was the challenge. Initially, teams relied heavily on research and what was technically possible. However, the process within the program licence forced team members to “get out of the building”.

In doing so, the long list of ideas, which were perhaps feasible, were tested for desirability or viability. This gave team members the evidence they needed to pivot or kill those ideas, raising the confidence of the organisation to start testing some of what they considered the riskiest ideas.

With the eLearning provided within the Strategyzer Innovation Platform, the team learned the tools and methodology. They followed the process to run experiments to gather evidence and therefore insights as to whether these new ideas would lead to profitable business models.

Working with ideas that are high risk can be really uncomfortable. I even had the COO of IBL Seafood remind the teams again, that it's okay to have ideas with risks, we now know how to deal with these and that's the whole point of the process.”

Alvinesh Jugun

Innovation Manager, IBL

Building in-house innovation capability

Through running the discovery program at IBL, Alvinesh has uncovered a repeatable way of running sprints through the Strategyzer Innovation Platform. Not only was he able to build his own innovation coaching capability, but the teams that went through the program now understand the process of innovation and how to validate, pivot or kill their ideas based on evidence. Additionally, this initiative within the Seafood Cluster can now be used as a proper use case for all other businesses willing to develop their own innovation capability. It also positions IBL as well as its Seafood Cluster on a trajectory towards greater competitiveness and resilience on the global market.

Following the first program licence, trialled with 3 teams in the Seafood Cluster, the innovation teams shared a report back to the leadership team of IBL and are looking to scale this approach across their different sectors and business units in the future.

The fact that after the program, we were able to put together the executive review report and share it with the board of the Seafood Cluster is also proof of the results we can achieve. So I think that the structured reporting that’s part of the program provides the right innovation metrics which is extremely important for confirming the program effectiveness."

Alvinesh Jugun

Innovation Manager, IBL

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At the time of writing, IBL are looking to further their usage of the Strategyzer methodology on the platform to autonomously run the Validation program, having run some ideas through the discovery program.  They continue to explore new ideas autonomously using Strategyzer’s program licenses.

There was a very personal approach to the way that Strategyzer treated my request. And we were able to work our way to a mutually agreeable solution.”

Alvinesh Jugun

Innovation Manager, IBL

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