A Playbook for Corporate Innovation - Explorium HK

© EXPLORIUM HONG KONG 2020
A Playbook
for ecosystem innovation
For more about this playbook
and how to get involved in
evolving it, contact:
hello@explorium.hk
@exploriumHK (insta + fb)
www.explorium.hk
Version 1.01 – Updated August 6th 2020

01
02
03
04
05
06
07
Foreword
LANDSCAPE
First steps
Toolkit
LAY OUT THE Blueprint
Case study: Explorium
Conclusion
Index

We believe in
GROWTH THROUGH COLLABORATION.

Playbook for
ecosystem innovation
Two years ago we set out on a journey
to build an enterprise innovation and
collaboration hub.
This is the guide we wish we had then.
Built by innovators, for innovators.

In April 2018, the team got together in Shanghai to work on
a new project for the Fung Group — update the Explorium
innovation hub proposition for the Group's Hong Kong HQ.
This is a collection of methods and tools we wish we had
then. And a blueprint for how we would build another
Explorium today.
Our assumption, if you're reading this, is that you're either
very interested in innovation methodologies or about to
embark on a project or journey that involves setting up an
innovation team at your company.
FOREWORD
1. An overview of teams we have been inspired by and a view on the
directions they have chosen. There are so many ways of positioning the effort.
We mainly look at four 'directions': insight and thought leadership; research and
development; process and capability building; and new partners. This, in many
ways, is the strategic mix you have available when considering a new innovation
effort.
2. The 'first steps' section can further help you localise your effort to your
company, location, stakeholders and ecosystem. These are five simple steps to
getting started: 1) mapping key stakeholders; 2) getting to know the stakeholders;
3) finding a starting point; 4) launching the first experiments; 5) creating a
feedback loop; and 6) defining your themes. We also share useful links to
learning more.
3. In Toolkit, we get into more detail about 'how' to do the work. We cover 12 tools
that have been useful to us — some borrowed, some built by the team, covering
areas like the 'Pilot2Scale' POC process and rapid prototyping. There are again
links to more in depth articles we've written on this in our
Explorium Intersections Medium page.
4. Of course, we look at our own history, too. Mostly being descriptive about our
activities and frameworks — more so than being reflective.
5. Finally, we get to the core with a blueprint for future efforts. This section
contains learnings for our next innovation initiative and further growth of
Explorium.
It's been a great exercise putting this together and reflecting on our successes
and failures. No doubt the latter outnumber the former many times over. Read this,
and maybe you can avoid some of our mistakes.
In the guide, you'll find:

Who’s Role is it to Innovate?
All businesses innovate – coming up with
new value propositions that their customers
are willing to pay for — so why have
dedicated corporate innovation teams?
One explanation is that in the current
business context, creating new sources of
value has become relatively more important
than it was in the past to ensure the
long-term business sustainability of
organizations.
One strategy to do so, is to invest in a
team that can deliver insight, process and
capability around innovation –
i.e. “corporate innovators.”
Why Now?
Currently, several threats and opportunities lie ahead for our
organizations:
• Climate change is a truly global challenge that requires an
unpresented level of coordination the collaboration between
countries, communities and sectors.
• A changing world order is creating new markets and rearranging
supply chains.
• A generational transition is seeing new decisions-makers in
organizations bringing in a different set of values and behaviors
that co-exists with incumbent mindsets and processes.
• An accelerating adoption of technology is making us rethink our
assumptions about productivity and consumption and is opening
the door to more competition from adjacent industries and new
market entrants with deep VC funded budgets.
The confluences of the above and many others mandate
organizations to proactively reconfigure their values, business
models and strategies — and to innovate to adapt to the changing
landscape. Or, as the clichee goes, "innovate or die".
BEFORE WE BEGINA few thoughts on the foundational thinking, methodologies and tools in this playbook and their context and
relevance today.
What is Ecosystem Innovation?
As a term “business ecosystems” was adopted
in the early 90s, pioneered by James Moore,
who suggested that “in a business ecosystem,
companies co-evolve capabilities around a
new innovation: They work cooperatively and
competitively to support new products, satisfy
customer needs, and eventually incorporate
the next round of innovations.”
The ecosystem metaphor manifests itself most
visibly in the models of the more successful
companies over the past 20 years –
technology businesses such as Apple, Amazon,
Google, Alibaba, Tencent that have built
platforms where developers, partners and
users create and exchange value.
Ecosystem Innovation, as we understand it,
adapts this thinking to any business context
and over-indexes on the importance for
organizations to build mechanisms that enable
seamless collaboration and co-creation with a
traditionally “external” set of partners and
vendors.

COMMUNITY POVS
It always starts with the
community, so we let the
community speak first.
The emergence of the
corporate innovator and
the communities
emerging around this.
“Innovation is not about big
budgets, it's about
rethinking.”
Gaëlle
“A new generation of
critical thinkers emerging,
companies need to find out
how to enable them.”
Sunhera
“During the crisis people have
become more conscious about
their consumption, more aware
of digital tools, and bond more
with their families.”
Laura
“The role of the innovator
hasn't fundamentally changed,
it's still about being able to see
patterns and connecting things
for other people.”
Richard

landscape
So many teams to learn from. A selection of them here.
2.

- Insights and Thought Leadership: What does the future look like? | Research Publications and Content
- Process and Capability Building: How do you innovate? | Training, Couching, Process Development
- Research and Development: How do you engineer the future? | Prototyping, Developing and Building
- New Partners: Who do you collaborate with? | Business and Corporate Development, Scouting, Investing
Our innovation compass
Methodology Definitions
A map is always helpful when starting a new journey; so we ventured to
look at a select group of pioneers in innovation, and especially corporate
innovation, to create a compass which can guide the way.
Why?
Understanding how other innovation teams position themselves within
the context of their internal or external clients is helpful when road-
mapping your own innovation strategy and right-fitting your innovation
capabilities to your clients’ needs.
The Insight
It’s key to assess the capabilities of your client and resource your
innovation effort according to your choice of approach.
The Choice
Our Innovation Compass tells us of three main approaches that
innovation teams take relative to the clients (internal or external) along
the lines of four innovation dimensions (listed to the right):
i) complement existing capabilities
ii) amplify existing capabilities
iii) a hybrid of both.
Choose wisely depending on the availability of internal resources, level of
executive buy-in, and strength of your network within the organization.
To create the Innovation Compass, we reached out to the selected group of
teams with a survey asking them to rank their positioning along the four
innovation dimensions. When input was not available, we looked at publicly
available information to infer their positioning.
Insights and Thought
Leadership
New Partners
Process and Capability
Building
Research and Development
Amazon 126
New York Times
R&D
Shiseido Global
Innovation Centre
P&G Ventures
Impossible
Nesta
Capgem AIX
Plug &Play
Eureka Nova
Explorium
Space 10
New
Partners
Building
Leadership
Research
and
Development

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2015
Parent company: Fung Group (approx. rev. 2019: $20.0 billion)
Location: Shanghai and Hong Kong
Team size: 12
Explorium
Founding story
Explorium was set up as Fung Group’s innovation and collaboration
hub with the purpose of learning, experimenting and scaling the
ideas, opportunities and business models that will shape the future
of supply chains.
GUIDING Principle
Growth through collaboration: the Explorium programs and tools help
accelerate learning, experimenting, and co-creating with a community
that includes business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, disruptors,
startups, retailers, suppliers and other partners.
PROJECTS & LEARNINGS
Explorium runs projects and generates learnings through its Map, Learn, Do
approach. Notable activities include:
Explorations: deep dives into markets and communities to generate insights
and inform decisions.
Sandbox Sprints: collaborative ideations with experts and partners to develop
and test new solutions and models.
Pilot2Scale: new solution pilots between business units and startups.
Source: Company Reports, Explorium Innovation Compass Survey
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2017
Parent Company: New World Development (rev. 2019: $9.8 billion)
Location: Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Team Size: 10
Notable Partners: Tencent, Mizuho Bank
EUREKA NOVA
Founding story
Eureka Nova is an accelerator powered by the New World Group
to hyperboost startup products and services and to facilitate opportunities for
startups to validate and commercialize their businesses with the New World
Group and its global partners.
GUIDING Principle
Commitment to business integration with the mission to make a mark in the
startup ecosystem and to make Hong Kong the platform to scale innovative
and disruptive technologies.
Innovation Compass
“There's no secret process (yet). Corporate innovation is a constant battle
but winning the little wars will help set a healthy foundation.“
Ben Wong, Head of Open Innovation
Key statistics

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2006
Parent Company: New York Times (rev. 2019: $1.8 billion)
Location: New York, NY
NY Times R&D GROUP
Founding story
The New York Times Research & Development group aims to create
new products that will change how people interact with media.
GUIDING Principle
The NYT R&D team evaluates emerging trends in media and technology
and forecasts how they might play out over the next two to three years.
Once an opportunity is identified, a dedicated team explores the space and
develop products in collaboration with other parts of the company.
Projects include systems to visualize reader habits in real time, different
interfaces for consuming news and other media, and crowdsourced
programs looking to glean new insights from and about the Times’
considerable photo and ad archives.
Research Areas: Computer vision | Photogrammetry | Spacial Computing |
Media Transmission |NLP | Misinformation
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2015
Parent Company: Ikea (rev. 2019: US$45.4 billion)
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
SPACE10
Founding story
SPACE10 is a research and design lab on a mission to enable a better
everyday life for people and planet. SPACE10 researches the societal,
environmental and technical shifts likely to impact people’s everyday lives.
GUIDING Principle
Prioritize a collaborative and open approach: “We strive to
surround ourselves with people who are smarter than us and share
all our research and ideas publicly”
Work with an ever-growing network of forward-thinking specialists and
creatives from around the world.
Host exhibitions, talks, dinners and screenings to engage with people,
provoke imagination, diversify our perspective and advance the SPACE10
mission.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Founded: 2019 (part of 8 innovation centres globally)
Parent: Shiseido (rev. 2019: $10.5 billion)
Location: Yokohama, Japan
S/PARK
Founding story
S/PARK is an urban-style open lab located in Japan. The space is
designed to create a sense of community and actively encourage the
meaningful exchange of ideas between consumers and researchers.
GUIDING Principle
S/PARK’s mission is to accelerate beauty innovations that come out of
Japan, partnerships with external Japanese and international research
institutes, and collaborations with various companies, including dynamic
start-ups.
In 2019, S/Park launched “fibona”, an open innovation program, with four
activity pillars:
- Collaboration with startup companies
- Collaboration with consumers
- Launching beta versions with speed
- Creating a new research climate
Key statistics
Innovation Compass
Insights and
Thought
Leadership
New Partners
Process and
Capability
Building
Research and
Development

Founded: 2015
Parent Company: P&G (rev. 2019: US$67.7 billion)
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Notable Partners: M13 (venture builder and full-service venture firm)
P&G VENTURES
Founding story
P&G Ventures is an internal startup studio designed to fuel P&G growth by
creating brands and businesses to solve consumer problems in categories
where P&G does not currently exist.
GUIDING Principle
Partnerships with startups, entrepreneurs, and inventors to build brands
and businesses within the consumer-packaged goods space
to “improve how people care for their families, clean their homes, and
elevate their wellbeing.”
Select brands launched under P&G Ventures:
Zevo a line of nontoxic insect-killing products.
Opté, a device that applies makeup and anti-aging serums to age spots and
other marks without the look of heavy foundation.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass
Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2006
Parent Company: Independent
Location: 26 locations globally
PLUG & PLAY Tech Center
Founding story
Plug and Play is an innovation platform across investment, acceleration
and corporate innovation. Founded by Saeed Amidi,
Plug and Play is an early investor in Google, PayPal, Dropbox,
LendingClub, N26, among others.
GUIDING Principle
Bringing together the startups and the world’s largest corporations with the
mission to “make innovation open to anyone, anywhere.”
Plug and Play runs 60+ accelerator programs annually, that act as a platform
for major corporations and high-quality startups to connect and
collaborate. Plug and Play partners with 400 of the largest corporations
globally.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2016
Parent: Capgemini (rev. 2019 €14,125 billion)
Location: Distributed (18 nodes globally)
CAPGEMINI AIX
Founding story
Capgemini created AIX as a curated global ecosystem that includes
startups and academics, venture capital, incubators, sector experts and the
largest technology providers to accelerate the path to applied innovation.
GUIDING Principle
An ecosystem that allows organizations to proactively plan for and
respond to the various technology and business shifts they confront every
day and infuse innovation into the business culture and processes.
A portfolio of more than 20 distinct services that span the breadth of the
applied innovation process.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Founded: 1998
Parent: Independent | Charity
Location: London
NESTA
Founding story
Nesta is an innovation foundation. It was established in 1998 with an
endowment from the UK National Lottery as NESTA, National Endowment
for Science, Technology and the Arts. In 2012, Nesta became an
independent charity.
GUIDING Principle
Using bold ideas to help governments and communities reimagine public
services and recraft the role of public servants to be fit for the future.
Partners with many foundations, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the
BMW Foundation and the Kauffman Foundation; global companies such as
Google, Santander and Pearson, and more than 30 national governments.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass
Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development

Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development
Founded: 2013
Parent: Independent
Location: San Francisco | Lisbon | London
IMPOSSIBLE
Founding story
Impossible is an innovation group and incubator. The team aims to help
customers bring new life to existing products, services and cultures
using societal and planet centric thinking.
GUIDING Principle
Creating purpose, building products and designing businesses for the future
using Planet Centric Design.
To help restore the balance, and drive change in business and in society.
Impossible has created a set of tools for medium to large organizations that
combine with existing client methods.
The team incubated or built: Kinsu, Nikabot, Bond Touch, Impossible
People, Remii, Glimpse, Wires, Fairphone, Braveno, LokLok, Impossible
Wardrobe.
Key statistics
Innovation Compass

Founded: 2004
Parent: Amazon
Location: San Francisco
Team size: >3,000
AMAZON LAB126
Founding story
Lab126 started when Amazon had a vision: to improve upon the
physical book, making it easier than ever for customers to discover
and enjoy the written word.
GUIDING Principle
To deliver instant access to everything—digital or physical—from
anywhere, via delightfully unique Amazon experiences that make life
easier and more fun.
Innovation Compass
The Kindle: “after years of research and development by Lab126, Amazon
launched the first Kindle e-reader on November 19, 2007” but also
Amazon's suite of consumer electronics devices: the Echo speaker, Fire
HDX, Kindle Voyage, Amazon Fire TV, and the Amazon Fire Phone.
Key statistics
Leadership
New Partners
Building
Research and
Development

Considerations
The various teams we looked at run the gamut from open innovation platform to
internal R&D lab, from internal process consultants to independent thought
leadership organisations.
We do not take a view on which constellations of team skills is more or less successful
but the investment into the efforts vary significantly. In the case of Amazon Lab126,
thousands of people have worked there and some of the most high-profile Amazon
products, like the Echo, were invented there. IKEA's Space10 is a much smaller unit
but also more focused on getting inspirations started and exploring potential new
directions.
The size, mix, and location (e.g. proximity to HQ) of your team will determine the
effort — the interaction with and skillsets of business units will determine how the
effort is adopted in the business.

Localising to your context
Six steps to get you from zero to one.
3.

There are 100 ways
to define innovation
… and what seems like common sense in one organisation
might be outrageous at another.
These six steps will help you make your initiative relevant
to your key stakeholders and larger community.

1. mapping
key stakeholders
It looks like a good old-fashioned brainstorm session followed
by some desktop research. During the exercise, the team
should consider and assess who this initiative is going to
directly and indirectly impact.
• Who is the team reporting to and ultimately accountable to?
• Who are the potential clients of the innovation effort (e.g.
business units)?
• Who are the potential partners of the innovation effort (e.g.
investors, government agencies, etc.)?
The outcome is a long list of individuals and organizations that
make up a snapshot of the ecosystem the team will be
operating in organized in stakeholder categories.

2. Getting to know
stakeholders
The team should interview representatives
from each stakeholder group to create an
understanding of i) the general context
that the team is going to be operating in and
ii) the needs and motivations of each
stakeholder group.
The output is a set of personas that visually
summarize and present each stakeholder group.

3. Finding a
starting point
Bringing the first members of the community
together for an ideation exercise to come up
with and prioritize a set of activities that will
address the most pressing needs of the
key stakeholders of the ecosystem.
These are the first experiments that the team
should run.

4. Launching the
first experiments
Prototype your first activities.
Create low fidelity versions to generate
feedback from your users.

5. Creating a
feedback loop
Look back at the prototypes. Start establishing a
learning loop.
For every activity retrospective, it’s important to
get the team’s perspective on how it went and
felt, but also to bring in the outside perspective
— the view of clients, stakeholders, and
participants.
Reviewing the lessons learned from your
previous projects will help refresh your memory
on what worked/what didn’t, allowing for better
work processes.

6. Defining
your Themes
It can be hard for business units to plug into the
work of an innovation team, especially if there is
no ongoing project with that business unit.
We found that spending some effort on defining
core themes is a simple way to drive alignment,
make the work more meaningful, and bridge
different horizons (e.g., the BU might want 'right
now' solutions while the innovation team might
look more towards future horizons).
What do you care about that's bigger than the
mission of your company — but still aligned to the
core of the business?
That's where you find your theme.

The Toolkit
Different tools we found helpful, all in one place for you.
4.

A PEak Inside the toolbox
• Community Map
• Safari Program
• Radar
• In-residence
MAP DO
• Pilot2Scale
• Sandbox
• Sprint
• Rapid Prototyping
LEARN
• Showcase
• Salons
Explorations
We organize our tools according to our Map, Learn, Do framework.
All tools can be used in both offline and online versions.

WHAT IT IS
A tool to help manage information about
collaborators, partners and stakeholders.
WHEN TO USE IT
When you need to log information such as expertise
and pain points and when you’re sourcing
collaborators (experts, startups, champions).
Community map
TOOLKIT
CRM | Visualization tool
MAP

WHAT IT IS
Curated learning journey into a different ecosystem
or other organizations. Safaris could venture out or
bring external collaborators into your
organization's operations – for example
bringing startups to the floor of a factory.
WHEN TO USE IT
To engage users into an activity outside of the 4-
walls of the business; to inspire and foster
connections and relationships with new partners.
Safari Program
TOOLKIT
Community Map
MAP

WHAT IT IS
Conversations with stakeholders to discover
their business needs and challenges and innovation
ideas
WHEN TO USE IT
At the beginning of the discovery phase behind a
new initiative (program, product,
services); periodically as a way of staying on top of
the context of your stakeholders.
Radar
TOOLKIT
Community Map | Interview Guide
MAP

WHAT IT IS
Providing co-location and co-working access to
innovators (startups, artists, non-profits) into your
physical space.
WHEN TO USE IT
To build deeper relationships with your community
and to create ambassadors of your work; to inspire
business units and showcase innovative work.
In-Residence
Program
TOOLKIT
Community Map
MAP

WHAT IT IS
A thematic format (online or offline) which convenes
your community and provides a stage for partners
and teams such
as startups, technology companies, non-profits to
exhibit their work and connect with
a relevant audience.
WHEN TO USE IT
To bring the community together for connections
and learning around insights and solutions.
SHOWCASE
TOOLKIT
Showcase kit | Community Map
LEARN

WHAT IT IS
A conversation format that brings together internal
and external community members around
meaningful conversations and explorations.
WHEN TO USE IT
As a research tool when trying to capture insights
and ideas from a group of experts or a set of users
with unique perspectives.
Salons
TOOLKIT
Facilitation Guide | Community Map
LEARN

WHAT IT IS
A framework that helps business teams engage with
startups and tech partners to run PoCs and pilots in a
structured and goal-oriented way.
WHEN TO USE IT
When you have a business challenge and are looking
for solution outside of the four-walls of the business.
pilot2scale
TOOLKIT
Team Cards | Project Charter | Definition Facilitation
Guide | NDA | Community Map
DO

WHAT IT IS
A sandbox is a “safe environment” that brings
together untraditional partners and collaborators to
create and experiment with new partnerships and
initiatives.
WHEN TO USE IT
When looking for big, transformation ideas, when
looking to convene partners from different
industries.
Sandbox
TOOLKIT
Community Map | Team Cards | Project Charter
DO

WHAT IT IS
A time-constrained process of multiple activities that
requires you to leave your “comfort zone” and
examine new markets, products, and business
models unfamiliar before.
WHEN TO USE IT
When exploring a larger theme, such as sustainability,
or new industry
exploration
TOOLKIT
Community Map | Salon | Showcase Kit | Interview Guide
MAP || LEARN || DO

WHAT IT IS
A time-constrained, five-phase process that uses
design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk
when bringing a new product, service or a feature to
the market. Usually involves expert opinions and user
testing.
WHEN TO USE IT
When you are helping teams design or test a new
product, service of feature.
sprint
TOOLKIT
Community Map | Rapid Prototyping Kit |
Interview Guide
DO

WHAT IT IS
A design workflow that consists of ideation,
prototyping, and testing. It helps designers quickly
discover and validate their best ideas.
WHEN TO USE IT
When designing and testing new product, service or
feature; during a sprint.
Rapid
prototyping
TOOLKIT
Community Map | Rapid Prototyping Kit
DO

The blueprint
Considerations going forward.
5.

How to Use the Blueprint
We outline the ingredients that you will need to set
up an innovation hub grounded in our experiences
and learnings, and the questions you need to ask
of yourself, your team and your larger organization
to set up your team for success.
In this last section, we suggest a set of models that
can scale innovation across regions and
organizations and some ideas about experiments
and activities that we wish we had done but didn’t.
Keep in mind that this is just one option and one
point of view out of many possible innovation
designs and scenarios. Hopefully, this blueprint can
guide you to discover a model and way of working
that works best for your needs.
In the blueprint we get to the core of what you need to run an innovation effort.

How To position yourself
Use the landscape to guide your positioning. This includes an honest view on
things like Innovation Value…
Innovation Value: talking about and measuring the value of your innovation effort is not straight-forward mostly
because i) almost by definition having an innovation team will be new to your organization and ii) by definition,
experiments and new business initiatives mostly fail to create immediate financial return. It will be up to you to own
the definition of the "value" you are creating for your sponsoring stakeholders and clients.
You have to have a strong hypothesis. Without it, it becomes much harder to measure the result and value.
Going back to the landscape section, we suggest using a metric framework with four pillars:
1. Insights and Thought Leadership: What does the future look like? | Research Publications and Content
2. Process and Capability Building: How do you innovate? | Training, Couching, Process Development
3. Research and Development: How do you engineer the future? | Prototyping, Developing and Building
4. New Partners: Who do you collaborate with? | Business and Corporate Development, Scouting, Investing
Lastly, consider how you position your effort in the broader ecosystem. As a corporate innovation team you are
likely aligned with the agenda of governments (who promote technology and innovation), non-profit organizations,
startups, and venture capital funds. Articulate your value for them and leverage their support.

…versus Innovation Theatre.
Innovation Theater: when businesses try to look innovative
without having real intent to build new value is looked down
upon in innovation communities and startup ecosystems.
Activities such as hackathons, open innovation competitions
and design thinking workshops are often seen as "theater" as
they generate ideas but don't drive implementation.
Ask yourself – do you want to part take in the theater and
how much theater is bad for you?
Our point of view is that "innovation theater" done right is
beneficial. If engaging people in innovation activities inspires
and excites them, then that's a plus in the mindset change
category. To that end, the post-its, t-shirts and "innovative"
titles can all be useful signals for more permission and intent.

Enablers and Barriers - 10 Questions
1. Have you agreed with key stakeholders on the 'why' of your innovation effort?
2. Do you have the material endorsement of the CEO (or key decision maker)?
3. Do you have a sufficient innovation budget (beyond salaries) and a multi-year commitment?
4. Do you have sufficient buy-in from the executive business sponsors?
5. Does your organization have an articulated innovation vision and strategy?
6. Do you have autonomy over project and program decisions (I.e. where do you sit in the organizational
chart?)
7. Does your team have strong personal networks (i.e internal/organization and external/ecosystem
relationships)?
8. Are there explicit incentives for your team to drive innovation projects?
9. Are there explicit incentives for business teams to work on innovation projects?
10.Does your client suffer from "innovation fatigue" (past projects that haven't delivered on promises)?
11. Are you how willing are you to change how you think about achieving innovation?
We find these 10 questions helpful when thinking your enablers and barrier.
Any "Nos" are potential barriers and red flags. Spend time and energy to develop
strategies to mitigate their impact.

TEam and Culture Checklist
Do you have the following skillsets on your team:
q Subject-matter expertise (e.g. industry
knowledge, engineering, etc.)
q Facilitation and coaching experience
q Design | UX/UI ability
q Marketing & Storytelling
q Networking and relationship management
Do you have the following attributes as a team:
q "Wash-the-car" attitude (esp. early-on)
q Intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness
q Diversity in experience and culture
q Friendship
q Open and transparent communication
Your team and the culture of your team are the critical ingredients to your effort. Innovation
is a people business and you'll need a functional unit to achieve impact.
More than anything, your team needs to "walk the talk" and lead by example.
Go through the checklist to see if you have these essential components that we found make
up a strong innovation team.

THINK ABOUT Space and Time
Understanding the pros and cons of managing an
innovation space:
Pros:
• A space for collaboration that can be offered as a co-working
space to startups and entrepreneurs (especially important in
dense cities such as Hong Kong)
• A controlled environment that takes business teams out of the
four walls of their office
• Space for demos and showcases
• Creates visibility for your team to the organization and the
outside world (especially if at the HQ)
• Making it a "home" fosters team cohesiveness
Cons:
• Rent, upkeep and staffing it are considerable expenses
• There's a risk to get stuck inside your space
• Filling the space with programming takes up considerable
resources
How much time do you need to build an
innovation effort?
This is a difficult question to answer as it very
much depends on the context of the location,
organization and the surrounding ecosystem and
community.
Our experience shows that you might need a
minimum of two years to build the team and
programs allowing for enough time for open
experimentation. Our bias would be to look at an
innovation effort on a five year planning
horizon.
Deciding on how much space and time you'll need for your innovation hub are key decisions.

HOW to ScaLE your efforts
Ingredients in scaling your innovation hub:
Work with a venture
builder:
Venture builders are
firms that specialize in
incubating new
business ideas.
Venture builders can
help build and groom
startup ideas into
businesses which can
be brought back into
the corporate as
growth stage
companies.
Create a
co-innovation hub:
Join forces with a
partner in a new
market to co-create
an innovation hub –
usually around a
theme or a vertical.
License it out:
Open your innovation
platform to other
corporates in adjacent
markets and
industries. Help others
set up and train their
innovation teams and
build up communities
around their
businesses.
Create a network:
Replicate the
process of setting up
an innovation hub in
a number of key
markets and
ecosystems for your
client organization.
Build organisational
capability:
Build your
organisation's open
innovation skillset, to
easier adopt new
tech.

Some ideas for THE FUTURE
Here's our Wishlist of things that we wanted to do but haven't done yet.
Micro-
factory!!!
GET FIRED
(FOR OVERINNOVATING)
GROWTH
HACK IT
START A
FUND

CASE STUDY: EXPLORIUM
"Growth through collaboration"

EXPLORIUM
a collaboration hub empowering communities of innovation
in supply chain, retail, and beyond, to co-create the future.
a place to learn from those creating change in their fields.
a mindset of "growth through collaboration”.
[ik-splawr-ee-uh m]

The explorium story – different versions
EXPLORIUM SHANGHAI
EXPLORIUM HONG KONG2015 (EXP SH 1.0): An experimental
platform and space focused on retail
and experience leveraging the active
innovation system in China. Nov. 2018: (EXP HK) Focused on activating
innovation, business development, and deep
outside expertise through a community of
entrepreneurs, accelerators, corporates, customers,
and other partners that co-create ideas and
solutions.
Nov. 2017 (EXP SH 2.0): Combining unique
‘incubator of incubators’ model,
experimental space, curriculum and events,
startups at all stages can participate and
benefit from the ecosystem.
Jun 2018 (EXP HK) Internal
launch with Hack The Rack
(hackathon) which lead to two
pilots.
2019 (EXP HK): Launch suite of services for
the ecosystem, focused around co-creation
among complementary partners and parties.

Explorium hong kong Activities 2018-2020
Birth of the Corporate
Innovation Playbook
Team formed
2018
Space opened with the
'Hack the Rack' hackathon
First experiments
and pilot programs
2019
Engaging customers of
the Group, not just BUs.
Going 'global' with safaris and
co-organised events with Explorium SH
2020
'Explorations'
launched
Explorium programme
expanded to include sprints
and other strategy work
Hack

Pilots
( AI+AR product development,
3D configurator, Chatbot,
AI training)
8 5Go-lives
(LF Logistics,
SCS 6, Cobalt )
1800Community members
35%Internal
engagement
20In-Residents
51NPS
7Parallel ecosystems
interacted with
(New York, Israel, Shenzhen,
Shanghai, Thailand,
Taiwan, Singapore)
Explorium HONG KONG in numbers

EXPLORIUM is an initiative dedicated to the Fung Group.
We bring an outside-in perspective to qualify new
opportunities, inform strategies, and build new partnerships
with the Fung Group.
Ideally, this is not for the Fung Group we know today but for
the Fung Group of tomorrow. However, immediate business
value is our work, too.
Our model of growth through collaboration is our way to
harness the power of community to create change. The
model is founded on the simple idea that business leaders
can lead better when they are given access to an
interdisciplinary global marketplace of ideas and practices.
As a Fung Group initiative, our DNA is rooted in retail and
supply chains but we know talent and ideas exist in all
industries.
FUNG GROUP x EXPLORIUM

We see ourselves as an interface for collaboration. A
space and community where we can surround
ourselves with people who are smarter than us —
with experts and creatives from multiple fields, and
from all over the world.
Our collaborative approach allows us to work with
the best and brightest talents out there while staying
small and quick on our feet.
Our network

While anchoring in a process of 'map, learn, do' —
our innovation filtering approach — and the mission of
growth through collaboration, the ability to stay agile
has been key not just in extreme uncertainty but also
doing normal times of just, well, uncertainty.
In 2020, this meant a pivot towards research in our
Explorations.
AGILe, READY FOR CHANGE

Sustainability
New
Identities
Innovation
core
2020
Explorations Disruption

Disruption
The pace of technological change is always increasing
exponentially, presenting new opportunities, challenges,
and ethical questions. Add to that trade conflicts and
COVID-19 — and we have global disruption.
We explore emerging technologies, ways of working,
and major shifts, while critically questioning who we are
becoming when adopting and adapting to them.

Sustainability
We are in the middle of a climate emergency
and it is accelerating. The apparel and accessories
industries are in the middle of this climate crisis.
We explore innovative solutions for more circular
products and lifestyles.

New Identities
The societal changes of past decades have been
complex. From new political and economic centres
to a global shift in social norms.
We explore the changes people face and learn
about their new contexts and identities.

In CONCLUSION
There is no conclusion, just learning new things. We
hope this playbook has been helpful in your positioning
and our ongoing experiences at Explorium can serve as
inspiration to you.
We would love for you to join us in building a better
playbook together.

Playbook Collaborators
+ Explorium HK, Explorium SH, Fung Academy, Eureka Nova, Explorium in-residents, and last but not least, all of the
Disruption Exploration speakers and people interviewed for our community POVs
YOU

A Playbook for Corporate Innovation - Explorium HK

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