Collaborating with Startups and Customers on AI – Approach and Lessons Learned

Simon Philip Rost will talk about GE Healthcare’s approach to enhancing its value proposition and position the organization as a digital healthcare company on top of MedTech. He will share how the organization collaborates with startups, customers, and other partners to leverage digital and AI. Simon will share insights on:

• Starting with one collaboration cohort and progressing to second and third cohorts – selecting the problems from customers to work on and involving one customer as acceleration partner and another to ensure scalability
  
• How the multi-player collaboration tackles the limits of startup-corporate collaboration and enables success
  
• Evolving the approach and engaging with an open innovation company to enhance startup collaboration and overcome the challenge of startups not speaking the same language
  
• How the collaboration supports company positioning and enhances the value proposition
  
• Lessons learned on startup collaboration including the need to collaborate at eye level, understand the value proposition for each participant, and identifying the right customer to collaborate with

The Future of Customer Experience

Panel on The Future of Customer Experience

Building Digital and Social Media Campaigns – And the Key Organizational and Cultural Elements to Accelerating E-Commerce

Celso Borges Shimabukuro will talk about how PepsiCo leverages AR and external collaboration to create and scale marketing campaigns. He will also discuss what it takes to drive e-Commerce – a key enabler for Omnichannel. Celso will share challenges and learnings on:

• Leveraging AR to create a digital advent calendar for snacks – and doing deep research on consumer habits and snacking occasions to identify new occasion opportunities and tap into with quick delivery value proposition
• Creating collaborative social media ads with Tesco and Facebook and a direct-to-consumer campaign on TikTok
• The key role of ecommerce as a champion of omnichannel – and the need for cultural, organizational, and capability elements to fall in place and propel e-Commerce
• How the transactional relationship with customers and relying on them to engage with consumers clashes with the need in e-Commerce to understand consumers directly
• The need to enable a culture of agility and learning fast to accelerate e-Commerce
  Managing the challenge of embedding e-Commerce into the business and giving it more autonomy – and the hurdle of the organization and supply chain being built for retail

The Future of Customer Experience

Panel on The Future of Customer Experience

Bringing Marketing Services In-House – What It Takes to Build Your Own Agency

Thomas Heilskov will talk about Arla Foods’ journey to building an in-house agency from scratch. He will share the approach taken to setting up the agency and growing it from 8 people to 130 with hubs in several markets. Thomas will share learnings on:

• Creating an in-house agency model and new ways of working that is more fit for building brands in a digital world
  
• The benefits of having an in-house agency that integrates creativity and media to overcome silos with a simpler and more agile operational model
  
• Setting up the agency and determining what to copy from external agency design and ways of working – applying the startup mindset and recruiting the right agency talent
  
• Expanding from digital creative content to become a lead agency for global brands
  
• Managing the mindset shift in working with colleagues instead of external partners
  
• Lessons learned including the need to deliver on key components comparable to external agencies
  

How Brand and Purpose Impact Customer Experience – Living Up to a Brand’s Promise and Engaging the Organization

Tina Lilje will talk about Philips’ Customer Experience approach for their B2B business. She will reflect on the learning along the company’s journey to a better customer journey and how intended approached don’t always deliver the desired results.

• Neither ‘Fixing the Basics’ nor’ Delighting the Customer’ are the approaches of the future; combination of both and less delight might just be the way forward
• Your approach will differ depending on what your goal is: are you planning to stop the bleeding or grow your business and strengthen your brand?
• What Philips learned, changed and how we ultimately used the twin CX approach to improve customer experience.
  

Spotting and Tackling Dilemmas

Thomas Ritter will lead a lab on dilemmas. He will briefly introduce the issue of which dilemmas leaders need to solve and to make tough decisions about. Thomas will start the lab off with a short teaser dilemma. This will be followed by group discussions.

The participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand how to spot dilemmas, discuss them, decide and implement a solution
  
• Work in groups on a provided marketing dilemma with the goal of arriving at a shared conclusion
  
• Share the largest dilemma from their respective companies
  
• Harvest discussion results

Productivity Booster or Creativity Killer? The Power of Generative AI for B2B and B2C Companies

Michael Haenlein will lead a lab on leveraging Generative AI. He will start the lab off with a short introduction to the disruptive and fundamental change Generative AI brings. This will be followed by group discussions.
The participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the generative AI capabilities
• Work in groups on provided challenges focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Explore and identify opportunities to leverage Generative AI
• Determine how to implement Generative AI and identify challenges
• Harvest discussion results
  

Driving Digital Transformation for Marketing – Connecting Marketing and Sales and Adding Value to the Global Model

Eva-Mia Westergren will talk about how Microsoft’s Swedish branch drives digital transformation in marketing and digital selling. She will discuss the rationale and benefits of the transformation and detail how the branch gets people on board to drive change. Eva-Mia will share insights on:

• Identifying unique local opportunities to add value – and ensuring alignment with the global strategy
  
• Getting organizational buy-in – starting with local leadership and getting them excited about the transformation
  
• Training marketers to get them to understand the process, system, and benefits – changing mindsets and building skills
  
• Mobilizing sellers and supporting them to change towards modern digital selling – leveraging the right incentives to change sellers’ behaviors
  
• Leveraging AI and data and managing challenges – ensuring local relevancy and getting everybody on board
  

Bridging the Gap: Applying UX and Agile Principles to Marketing and Embracing Inclusivity

Bilgi Karan will talk about how marketers can leverage UX and agile principles and methods for inclusive brands. He will discuss how UX and Agile can enable marketing to turn problems into opportunities. Bilgi will detail how – and why – to keep a laser focus on customer problems, while following up with outcomes and measurable hypotheses

Building Inclusive Innovation Based on Real Customer Problems and Long-Term Thinking

What happens when we write “Innovation Department” on a door. Do we encourage the rest of the organization to innovate or stand back? How to create an inclusive innovative culture in an organization that is based on inclusive design. Example of intrapreneurship at IKEA Home smart. Bilgi will talk about failures and not only success in this session. Some lessons learned:

• Finding fantastic problems rather than fantastic solutions for lasting success
• Inclusive innovation both for innovators and the customers by eliminating idea ownership
• Prioritizing user outcomes over business outcomes with the power of UX
• Celebrating failures – before during and after a project

Driving Sustainability – Reducing Scope 3 Emissions and Leveraging AI

Johan Hanekom will talk about Amazon’s thrust for sustainability. Johan will share insights on:

• Amazon’s strategy to achieving sustainability goals: the plan and approach to tracking against the objectives – from water positivity to net zero and investments in clean companies
• Collaborating with suppliers and customers to reduce the organization’s Scope 3 emissions
• Leveraging machine learning and data sets to identify trends, inform the strategy, and drive down carbon emissions

Amazon’s Culture of Innovation – Nurturing Day-One Mindsets at Scale and Onboarding Customers with Company Culture

Johan Hanekom will talk about how Amazon continually applies its culture of innovation at scale. He will also discuss why and how the organization onboards customers with the organization’ culture. Johan will share insights on the key elements of the organization’s tried and tested innovation culture, including on:

• Leadership principles – and why they conflict by design
  Mechanisms – the approach to reporting ideas through a press release, working backwards, and making decisions accordingly
• Architecture of the organization – how the organization enables employees to innovate quickly through the cloud
• Building teams – from hiring against leadership principles and culture fit through team set-up to standardizing deliverables
• Sharing the culture with customers – training them and establishing a common language

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results

Mastering the Art of Customer Validation: Effective Questioning and Bias Mitigation in New-Business Building

In today’s ever-evolving landscape of corporate innovation, the ability to ask the right questions is a fundamental skill for identifying customer problems, uncovering opportunities, and forging new business pathways. Manuel Schneider will provide practical insights into the art of questioning and strategies to eliminate biases that can obscure the customer perspective. He will share insights on:

• The Power of effective questioning – the approach to leveraging thoughtfully constructed queries as catalysts for innovative ideas and solutions
• Customer insights unveiled: using the right questions for customer validation, exploring techniques for empathizing with customers and extracting valuable insights to drive problem-solving and identify opportunities – with examples of good and bad questions
• Guarding against cognitive biases – leveraging effective techniques to avoid subtle biases that can inadvertently creep into the customer interaction process such as confirmation bias and anchoring bias
• Frameworks for effective questioning – using proven questioning frameworks to elicit candid responses from customers, dig deeper, and uncover latent needs and aspirations
• Iterative questioning – iterating to continuously refine and adapt questions as understanding of customer needs and market dynamics evolves
• Practical insights and key takeaways on promoting innovation and cultivating a customer-centric culture
  

Experience Design – Creating End-to-End Customer Experience

Nina Warburton will lead a lab on leveraging experience design for an end-to-end customer experience. She will briefly introduce the approach and explain how it allows the organization to identify and address issues in customer experience. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the benefits of experience design and learn how to leverage the ’living wall’ to identify issues in customer experience
  
• Work in groups on leveraging experience design
  
• Harvest the workshop’s results
  

Building Digital and Social Media Campaigns – And the Key Organizational and Cultural Elements to Accelerating E-Commerce

Celso Borges Shimabukuro will talk about how PepsiCo leverages AR and external collaboration to create and scale marketing campaigns. He will also discuss what it takes to drive e-Commerce – a key enabler for Omnichannel. Celso will share challenges and learnings on:

• Leveraging AR to create a digital advent calendar for snacks – and doing deep research on consumer habits and snacking occasions to identify new occasion opportunities and tap into with quick delivery value proposition
• Creating collaborative social media ads with Tesco and Facebook and a direct-to-consumer campaign on TikTok
• The key role of ecommerce as a champion of omnichannel – and the need for cultural, organizational, and capability elements to fall in place and propel e-Commerce
• How the transactional relationship with customers and relying on them to engage with consumers clashes with the need in e-Commerce to understand consumers directly
• The need to enable a culture of agility and learning fast to accelerate e-Commerce
  Managing the challenge of embedding e-Commerce into the business and giving it more autonomy – and the hurdle of the organization and supply chain being built for retail

Creating Strategic Connections Between Marketing, Innovation, and Sales – Bringing the “Strategy to Business” – Process to Life

Julia Kurtz will talk about Henkel’s approach in Industrial Adhesives to creating interconnections between different functions. She will detail the rationale and the approach to developing and implementing Strategy to Business. Julia will also discuss how the organization developed a digital tool to steer sales in a strategic way. She will share learnings on:

• Addressing the challenge of strategy fragmentation across functions – building Strategy to Business as an umbrella process to make a single person accountable for the entire process until the sales takeover
• Moving towards interconnections and having the Strategy to Business owner working closely with the different functions including innovation, marketing, and sales
• Bringing the process to life – having very clear roles and responsibilities, and managing challenges
• Developing a tool for integrated steering for sales – taking a strategic angle to direct resources to the most attractive opportunities
  

The Future of Customer Experience

Panel on The Future of Customer Experience

Redesigning Design – Leveraging Service Design to Understand Customer Journeys and Experiences

Service design enables organizations to find new solutions to current and future challenges. Clive Grinyer will show how the methods of service design can help organizations to turn customer insights into opportunities for innovation and better decisions for business.

• Leveraging design as a strategic and holistic tool – including for making customer centric decisions and honing in on what should rather than what can be built
  
• Using service design to drive customer centricity and cross functional collaboration Identifying customer needs and mapping consumer journeys – leveraging the blueprints to work on a shared vision
  
• Building and delivering on new transformative customer journeys – and across different channels
  

From Customer Journey Mapping to Blueprints – Turning Insights and Strategies into Successful Innovation

In this session we will use customer journey mapping to identify insights and understand the touchpoints, channels and systems that deliver customer experiences. We will look at how this can become a powerful tool for cross-business collaboration and a customer centric culture in your organization.

We will work on the following:

• Work in groups to select a customer persona within either B2B or B2C and map the customer journey
• Identify problems and pain points along the persona’s customer journey
• Discuss how to improve the customer journey and determine what is needed to deliver on the improvements
  

The Bumps on the Circular Road – Changing Customer Behavior and the Complexity of Measuring Resource Use

Owain Griffiths will discuss the challenges in realizing impact with circular solutions. He will explain why circular solutions are not enough to create impact. Owain will also detail the challenges in measuring the base-level of resource use and the impact on biodiversity.

• What it takes to change customers’ behaviors and engage them with circular mobility solutions – from policy and ecosystem change to the wicked problem of balancing behavior change incentives with highly variable burdens
• The complexity of the supply chain – the challenges in calculating the comprehensive environmental footprint beyond the generic databases and the downsides of the high-level assessment
• Circular resource use and biodiversity – managing the exponential increase in information and the challenge of engaging with novel issues in complex times

Driving User Experiences – Leveraging Consumer Centric Thinking, Supporting Teams and Building Capabilities

Søren Lethin will talk about how LEGO’s internal design thinking supports LEGO franchises to create compelling play experiences & Go-To-Market strategies through consumer centric approach and methods. He will share insights on:

• How to Go from ‘inside-out’ to outside-in to future-proof vision and offering – ‘consumer first’
• How to understand the world around your proposition – and strengthen with consumer, culture, and commercial insights.
  
• How to catalyze and inspire internal teams by supporting them to identify growth opportunities

How to Future Fit Strategic Innovation! Try Out the LEGO Innovation Everywhere Framework

Day to day pressure can distract innovation teams from innovating for the future. Søren Lethin will lead a lab on leveraging consumer centric tools to future-proof innovation. He will briefly introduce the 3C design thinking framework developed by LEGO’s Innovation Everywhere unit. This will be followed by a group discussion.
Lab participants will learn and discuss the following:

• Learn how the holistic outside-in perspective of the 3C framework enables strategic innovation
• Self-assess their organization’s strategic innovation practices
• Discuss and share experiences and best practices on the three elements of the 3C framework

Designing and Leading Adaptive Organizations

Our world is changing, faster than ever. We must adapt ourselves and our organizations to address the opportunities and pitfalls of a modern competitive environment. In this presentation we will provide an overview of the key components of organizational transformation as well as a few crucial lessons learned along the way based on experience from some of the world’s largest companies. Join us for this discussion to learn how to adapt your organizations to deliver differentiated value in a changing and competitive environment.

Designing for Sustainability & the Power of Carbon Labeling

Prakash Arunkundrum will talk about Logitech’s approach to accelerating sustainability through sustainable design and carbon labeling. Prakash will share learnings and challenges on:

• Designing for sustainability – integrating sustainability into every design position
• Addressing challenges in sustainable design, managing trade-offs, and evolving the approach
• Leveraging life-cycle assessments to create transparent carbon labelling for products – starting a movement, bringing other players on board, and managing challenges
• Lessons learned
  

Leading for Sustainable Innovation: Building a Culture of Collaboration and Effective Innovation

The heart of innovation is the combination of two ideas that have never before combined. Thus, the notion of connecting diverse perspectives is essential. But how can leaders build a culture that encourages bringing ideas together? Building on extensive research and decades of experience, Professor Erickson will help you identify specific approaches with the greatest potential for improving collaboration within your organisation.

• Use a seven-part assessment to evaluate your organisation’s “Collaborative Capacity”
  
• Identify the greatest opportunities for improvement
  
• Gain specific suggestions for action
  

Fostering Innovation Culture and Leadership

The only sustainable advantage today is the ability to build organisations optimized for innovation. Professor Erickson will share her decades of experience working with leaders to shape innovative organisations, summarizing the approaches into a useful, four-part leadership model: disrupt, intrigue, connect, and engage. Learn why these four roles are essential to innovation and specific ideas of ways to strengthen each within your own organisation:

• Disrupt by ensuring an continual infusion of new perspectives
  
• Intrigue by asking “How Might We” questions that draw others in
  
• Connect by making it easy for individuals and teams to share ideas when appropriate
  
• Engage through meaning with a unique purpose and tangible delivery that exceeds expectations
  

Unlock the Mindset and Motivations for Working with AI

Chris Brauer will lead a lab on how organizations can build a mindset and culture to make the most of AI. He will start the lab with a brief introduction to the core element of building a culture of adaptation and fostering growth mindsets. This will be followed by a group discussion.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Learn how to prepare the ground that is conducive to leveraging AI and drive growth mindsets of learning and experimentation – and overcome resistance
• Understand the different elements of the growth mindset and work through training their own mindsets
• Play a card game to discover individual growth mindset power – join the group of participants with the same growth mindset power to discuss the group’s power center
• Harvest discussion results

Identifying and Prioritizing Opportunities for the Application of Generative AI

Chris Brauer will talk about how organizations can capitalize on generative AI by integrating it into ways of working. He will detail how to embrace and align AI with organizational strategies. Chris will share insights on:

• Key factors to identifying growth opportunities – leveraging generative AI for the right use cases
• How to go through the journey of adopting generative AI, reducing risk, and aligning with the strategic agenda – building applications safely and validating feasibility before prototyping
• Integrating AI into the workforce – increasing performance and supporting people to upskill

Driving Change for Sustainability – Engaging the Organization and Building True Partnerships

Anna Celsing, Head of Sustainability for the Alfa Laval Group, will elaborate on the company’s journey. She will dig into how innovation and key technologies can support the sustainability transformation and share examples how Alfa Laval leverages data and collaborates externally to drive the transition forward.
Innovation – using the core of the company identity to accelerate the transformation of society together with partners. In the very beginning (1883), Alfa Laval introduced an innovative, efficient milk separator that revolutionized the industry. The company remains a frontrunner, driving the transformation towards a more sustainable living in the areas of energy supply, alternative proteins, water treatment and re-use, sustainable shipping etc.
Partnerships – Collaborating and co-creating within the ecosystem – transparency as a key factor to building true partnerships and achieving success. Giving examples of the work.
People – Engaging people throughout the company and at all levels – with sustainability at the core of the company purpose, clarifying roles and responsibilities and the follow up on targets.
Data – Tackling the big challenge of securing data quality to drive the change. To prove to “walk the talk”, an important competitive factor – and to encourage continuous engagement internally.

Lessons Learned in Driving Culture Change & Getting Buy-In

Sascha Cechlovsky has been heading culture transformation within DHL’s German business. He will talk about the approach to drive culture in a division with a long tradition and strong culture. Sascha will share lessons learned on:

• Driving culture change and building a team of change facilitators
• The need for senior leadership’s sponsorship and willingness to drive change
• Identifying key culture change targets from collaboration to agility and innovation ¬– and what regional leadership teams must do differently
• Creating and launching change management strategies – from communicating to convincing the leadership team to tracking progress and coaching leaders
• The approach to work with the management team to achieve the future culture
• Managing the challenge of getting leaders on board – implementing lean tools and dialogue around main KPIs and getting managers to visit people and provide feedback to employees
• Tracking and monitoring progress to drive change
•  Key learnings including the importance of executive sponsorship, being clear on the reasons for change, linking change to business objectives, getting managers to lead the culture transformation, and more

Driving Ambitious Action through Partnerships and Innovation for Sustainability and NetZero

Simon Boas Hoffmeyer will talk about how Carlsberg Group has executed its sustainability programme, and among others achieved a 57% at their breweries and 16% in the full value chain since 2015. He will further reflect on how the brewer continues to to pioneer low-carbon brewing techniques and technologies to achieve a net ZERO value chain by 2040.

• Carlsberg’s practical approach to sustainability-driven innovation:
  • Finding a project that has a concrete sustainability benefit but is also interesting for consumers – doing an assessment to see what is important for external and internal stakeholders
  • Treating sustainable innovation as any other project and using traditional innovation process
  • Identifying the most important hot spots to drive down carbon emissions
  • Measuring and managing scope 3 emissions using primary data
• Lessons learned on the journey:
  • Set bold ambitions and develop methodologies during the journey
  • Create engagement on both market and Group level
  • Let data drive the decision making processes 

Integrating Sustainability into Innovation Pipeline for Today and Tomorrow – Creating Sustainability Scorecards and Fostering Dual Mentality

Annette Stube will talk about how Stora Ensor interlinks strategy, sustainability, and innovation to drive sustainability at the right pace. She will discuss how the organization integrates circularity into all products and manages uncertainty with a dual mentality. Annette will share insights on:

• Creating innovation guidelines to include circularity into products and CapEx and OpEx
• Developing a scorecard for innovation units – measuring different sustainability aspects, market fit, and competitiveness to assess all products in the innovation pipeline
• Managing the portfolio – creating a dashboard overview of how regenerative products are, at any given time, and leveraging forecasting and back-casting informed by sustainability
• Engaging people with sustainability – involving people, managing the competences challenge, and building dual mentality to meet today’s and future sustainability requirements
• Working with key opinion leaders and organizations to drive circularity, achieve impact, and address uncertainty

Exploring Connected Solutions and Digital Services – Working with Businesses and Managing Barriers

Åsa Mohalland and Tommy Hansson Strand will share Volvo Group’s approach to creating digital services & ventures. They will detail what sets the Innovation Lab’s approach apart in exploring and driving transformation towards new growth. Åsa and Tommy will also discuss the barriers in creating digital services and share learnings on:

• Innovation Lab setup and way of working – making strategic but also realistic bets: driving agile and bringing in new people to mature faster and build a mix of capabilities
  
• Leveraging open innovation and venture clienting model and collaborating with startups to accelerate value creation
• Venture building through inhouse capabilities in multidisciplinary venture teams
• Interplay between explore and exploit through close collaboration within the Volvo Group and frameworks to support the collaboration
  – Involving the businesses early to get the buy-in and to quickly decide whether to scrap or pursue an opportunity
  – Working with businesses to understand their plans, opportunities, and barriers – managing the challenge in orchestrating the conversation and helping the business to lift barriers
• Lessons learned including starting small, getting business owners involved, and more