Innovation Workshop Held for William Demant Executive Team at Sutardja Center
The Sutardja Center was pleased to welcome the executive team from William Demant this week to our Innovation Collider space at the Cal Memorial Stadium. The custom workshop was focused on entrepreneurship and innovation in mature companies. William Demant, based in Denmark & founded in 1904, is a international leader in hearing healthcare.
Today’s workshop offered a holistic top down UC Berkeley view on entrepreneurship and innovation in an ever- accelerating business environment. At the Sutardja Center, innovation is approached in a broad way, meaning business-innovation, customer driven innovation, innovation in production, logistics, delivery and HR processes. Our view is that innovation is much more than simply new technologies. Incumbents are threatened by their own success, so it is about identifying new technologies, their opportunities and threats in due time, and building up management structures, mindsets and culture that not only allow, but drive innovation. See our view on corporate innovation in this slideshare deck.
The executive team was fascinated by the Berkeley Innovation Index survey, with assessment and analysis provided by InnoQuant. The feedback provided insight to the team on their innovation characteristics, ranging from trust to diversity. Their “word clouds”, based on the group’s BII scores, allowed for a very visual comparison of their current strengths relative to where they assessed improvement was needed.
If you are interested in a custom workshop on innovation for your group or organization, please contact Jocelyn Weber, Director for Executive Programs, Sutardja Center, at jweberphipps@berkeley.edu or Ikhlaq Sidhu, Chief Scientist & Founder, Sutardja Center, at sidhu@berkeley.edu. Or, join us this fall for a weeklong program for executives and leaders focused on innovation; learn more about the Silicon Valley Innovation Leadership Program here.