We knew that once the mind was set free, people would become curious, experimental, and hungry for knowledge, as there was plenty of it out there and now instantly accessible... They would develop the attitude and behavior needed to build a techglomerate.”

—SMA on the Birth of the Philippine ‘Techglomerate’ published on BusinessWorld

The Aboitiz Group is building and nurturing innovative, agile, and entrepreneurial behaviour among A-People to prepare them for success in the Great Transformation or GT2025. To help promote this, AEV has assembled a group of innovation champions from each CSU (corporate service unit) and invited them for a three-day bootcamp on corporate innovation and intrapreneurship. The program is designed to open their minds to uncover innovation opportunities and influence fellow team members to be creative in spotting game-changing and incremental innovation opportunities.

Innovation is an important ingredient for the Great Transformation! With the innovation bootcamp we hope to empower the innovation champions to pave the way for great innovations to happen at Aboitiz. This includes the journey from idea generation, prioritization up to realization and testing

– Adrienne Heinrich, Lead - Innovation and Process Management

During the session, the champions were able to measure their personal innovation maturity, for example, in terms of mindset and skill set readiness. It also covered some strategic imperatives — preparing for business disruption, business model innovation and renovation, developing and re-assessing a value proposition and its relevance to stakeholders, and corporate foresight with a 10-years-plus time horizon.

Participants closed the bootcamp by pitching their ideas for innovation opportunities to improve or create new products and services. The range of pitches included innovation-relevant elements such as, value proposition canvas, empathy mapping, business model canvas, and go-to-market strategy.

Fair Home: Integrated Property Valuation Service – a cloud-based AI-driven platform that provides access to objective, reliable, and transparent property valuation while guiding consumers through the investment process.

Businesses can offer their services to prospective property owners and home improvement enthusiasts to make the process and home improvement options more consistent, efficient. and effective.

• “The bootcamp allows the participants to demonstrate synergy and get their creative juices flowing. In a short period of time, all the teams were able to produce great presentations.”
  – Rebecca Bautista, Finance, Accounting and Business Support

Whiskey (Alcohol) Subscription – an app-based subscription service where customers can experience different whiskey brands depending on what suits their budget.

• “I was really challenged to think differently because of the questions posed during the sessions and presentations. This bootcamp has given me another perspective into innovation and what makes it successful. Surely, I will be able to use what I learn as we look into potential innovation areas in our team”.
  – Marc Alejo, Corporate External Affairs

Virtual Desktop-as-a-Service – a cloud computing platform that offers virtual desktops to end users and can be accessed anywhere. This helps team members stay productive no matter where they work, and makes it easy for IT to support Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs.

• “We all have many ideas and innovations in our mind, but which among of them should we start doing and implementing? With the bootcamp, we learned how to rate each innovation and pick which we should start to either solve our current problem, or improve our current situation.”
  – Christian Marin, AEV CyberSecurity
• “Innovation does not end with just crafting bright ideas. It evolves through continuous experimentation with the goal of creating customer desirability, and by fulfilling their needs.”
  – Roderick Gaviola, AEV Physical Security

Chatbot: Enabling Great Investor Experience – an AI bot that will enhance the investor and fund managers’ experience in capturing relevant information about Aboitiz.

• “The bootcamp gave me a full view on how an innovation project starts, from an idea and up to the stage of implementation and reaching its full value and impact to the organization.”
  – Ivy Manalang, AEV IR

Do-It-YourSelf Process Automation – a cloud-based application that will allow users to automate their processes in a very simple manner.

• “The program equipped the innovation champions to be able to innovate strong - minimizing risks of failure by having a clear process.”
  – Cha Martin, AEV HR

Of the ideas pitched, the top three were Virtual Desktop as a service by Czarina Bastasa (AEV IT), Harmz Naparota (AEV Physical Security), Roderic Gaviola (AEV Physical Security), Jet Velante (AEV GIA), Tina Calumpang (AEV Treasury), and ​​Christian Jean Marin (AEV CyberSecurity); Fair Home: Integrated Property Valuation Service proposed by Adrienne Heinrich(AEV Innovation & Process Mgt), Paul Cang (AEV Investment), Rebecca Bautista (AEV FAB), Burn De Guzman (AEV HR), Fatima Mateo (AEV CER), and Mark Robles (AEV Legal); and Whiskey (Alchohol) Subscription from the team of Marc Alejo (AEV External Relations), Joanna Abay (AEV Tax), and Marvin De Torres (AEV IR).

Related topic: SMA's "The birth of the Philippine ‘techglomerate’" published on BusinessWorld