Innovation is integral to business success, for companies to serve customers well through the provision of new and improved products and services and stand out against competitors.
To this end, open innovation enables companies—both large and small— to crowdsource ideas, share knowledge and information about problems with external partners and work with them to create market-ready solutions. By enabling companies to draw on ideas from external sources, the cost to develop new products and services through open innovation is often lower than hiring and acquiring the resources needed to design a suitable solution.
For startups, participation in open innovation opportunities doubles up as a collaboration opportunity with corporates to develop or bring new solutions to market, resulting in a win-win outcome.
Here are three of Singapore’s innovation initiatives you should know about.
#1 Corporate Venture Launchpad (CVL)
WHAT IS IT? A programme where companies can work with an EDB-appointed venture studio to embark on venture sprints and build new businesses quickly and effectively.
WHO IS IT FOR? Established companies, regional family businesses and high growth companies with Singapore-based operations, who seek to:
- Keep ahead of disruption through building new ventures with innovative products, services and business models,
- Join a growing corporate venturing movement, where companies build new ventures that have strong potential to scale from Singapore to become globally competitive businesses.
HOW DOES IT WORK? Companies can choose from a diverse pool of appointed venture studios that bring venture-building experience, methodologies, and multidisciplinary talent to support them in the ideation, incubation and building of a new venture. Participating companies will also receive co-funding support of up to 50% for qualifying costs (not exceeding S$500,000) for each concept validation sprint.
