August 3, 2024 • 35 mins
Ellie Charles Mann Hummel
Innovating Corporate KPIs - Ellie Amirnasr and Charles Vaillant
Driving Progress with Mann+Hummel's Hunter Strategy
In this episode of the Corporate Explorer series, we dive into innovative business practices with Mann+Hummel's CTO/CDO Charles Vaillant and Digital Ventures Manager Ellie Amirnasr. The guests discuss the pitfalls of applying traditional KPIs too early in new business ventures and advocate for non-financial progress metrics. They introduce the 'Hunter Strategy' for pursuing business validation and scaling within exploration-type projects. The conversation covers how to manage resource allocation efficiently, the evolution of their innovation framework, and essential advice for corporate explorers. This episode is sponsored by Wazoku, a leader in creating sustainable innovation ecosystems.
00:00 Introduction to Business Innovation
01:10 Sponsor Acknowledgment
01:49 Meet the Guests: Ellie Amirnasr and Charles Vaillant
02:54 Understanding Mann and Hummel
04:56 Challenges with Traditional Metrics
10:54 Hunter Strategy Explained
17:21 Implementing Effective Metrics
23:59 Resource Allocation in R&D
30:18 Advice for Corporate Explorers
34:47 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Business Innovation, KPIs, Venture Management, Non-Financial KPIs, Innovation Ecosystems, Corporate Exploration, Growth Validation, Hunter Strategy, Mann and Hummel, Wazoku, Aidan McCullen, Ellie Amirnasr, Charles Vaillaint, Corporate R&D, Digital Ventures, Strategic Metrics, Innovative Processes, Resource Allocation, R&D Investments, Corporate Transformation
Find Charles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chvaillant/
Find Ellie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellie-amirnasr/
Find Aidan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aidan McCullen (00:00):
A new business innovation in corporations is just like a venture.
(00:04):
managing it as an operational businessor corporate r and d project is a recipe
for failure . One common pitfall isapplying key performance indicators kpi
is too early, is it stifles risk takingand prevents innovation instead our guests
argue in favor of using non financial KPIsthat indicate progress at early stages
(00:30):
of any new business validation.
These serve as a compass that helpsthe innovation team, stakeholders and
management navigate their way to success.
Well- defined progress and successmetrics when combined with the right
understanding on how to build ahundred million dollar business enable
business owners to evaluate the actualperformance of their business in
(00:54):
almost real time at Mann and hummeltoday's guest used , a hunter strategy
concept to design growth validationprocess for their digital ventures,
focusing on exploration type businesses.
Now, before I introduce those guests,I want to thank our sponsor of the
(01:15):
corporate explorer series, Wazoku.
Wazoku helps large organizationscreate effective, sustainable
innovation ecosystems that accelerateefficiency gains and new value growth.
It does this through intelligententerprise software that connects
and harnesses the power of employees,suppliers, startups, universities,
and the unique Wazoku crowd of over700, 000 plus global problem solvers.
(01:41):
And Wazoku call that , . Collectiveintelligence and you
can find wazoku at www.
wazoku.
com now to today's guests and thelatest episode of the corporate explorer
series called "validation, managing thejourney from concept to scale", we are
joined by two corporate explorers whohave done just that, Ellie Amirnasr
(02:06):
and charles welcome to the show
Ellie Amirnasr (02:09):
Thank you.
Chalres Vaillant (02:10):
Thank you for having us
Aidan McCullen (02:11):
it's great to have you on the show guys we have so much to talk
about and you have so much wisdom, i'mscar tissue and arrows in your back to
share with our audience because you'vebeen through this many times and i was
so intrigued to hear about your storybecause, one of the things, We talk
(02:32):
about innovation all the time is howmetrics are broken but we also don't
realize that metrics can be broken evenfor the innovation process because the
innovation process changes dependingon the size of the opportunity you're
going after whether it's b2c b2b whatlife cycle stage that business is that.
(02:54):
Opportunity is that etc etc sothere's loads to get through today
but i thought we'd start up firstby explaining who man and home is,
to you guys are in that business
Chalres Vaillant (03:05):
My name is Charles Villante.
I'm the CTO and also CDO of Mannheim alsoin charge of the technology arm and the
digitalization arm of the corporation.
We are a privately ownedGerman based corporation.
We have been in business for 80plus years and our focus is to
(03:25):
separate the useful from the harmful.
In other terms, we do filtration.
That's what we do.
Any type of filter.
, of course, filters are everywhere inyour daily life, from the food that
you eat, the air that you breathe,the water that you use for your
laundry or washing yourself, allthe way to the way you go to work.
(03:49):
We do about 32 filter everysecond, 24 seven, and we'll be
located a location globally.
One of those so calledhidden champion of Germany.
Ellie Amirnasr (04:00):
I'm Elie Amirnasr as you mentioned.
And I've been with Mann and Hummelfor a little bit over 11 years now.
I studied material science.
And joined, HomelizeInnovation Project Manager.
First I was more into the innovationprocess for core business development.
Then in 2018, I started the journeyof transformational business
(04:26):
development and digitalization.
And since then I've been dealingwith corporate metrics for startups
and startups behavior for corporate.
And currently I'm managing thedigital ventures and digital
business for Mann and Hummel.
Aidan McCullen (04:45):
let's get stuck in.
We have so much to get through.
Many of our audienceare corporate explorers.
They're change makers, transformationartists inside organizations
and also startup founders.
And we know that traditionalmetrics and measurement.
Are the bane of so many of our listenerslet's share why that is from your
experience before we get into solutionsand i'd love you then Ellie to take
(05:09):
us through the hunter strategy butmaybe charles will start with you and
what's so broken about these metrics,
Chalres Vaillant (05:16):
Naturally when you do innovation, you are investing
quite a bit of resources whichis manpower, but also financial.
Investments that at a firm level,you're competing against other sorts of
investment and your top management andyour CFO want to make sure that those
(05:37):
investments are put at a good use.
So naturally,
the way you run your core business it'svery efficient, you know how to measure
it, you measure your ROI on project,you measure your return on investment,
your time to market and you're ableto do this in a very efficient way.
We typically tend to call this, thisthe exploitation type of business.
(06:03):
That the market risk isvery limited or inexistent.
You want to enter a new marketwith a product, so you have
to work on the technology.
So in my view, it's pretty straight line.
And you know what the objectiveis, you know where you want
to go, and then you go there.
And the typical metric thatpeople use , are okay for that.
But then when you go into more, breakthrough innovation, transformation
(06:27):
B, depending on how you call this, right?
It's a new market, newbusiness model, this type of
exploratory type of innovation.
Yeah.
it becomes a bit more nebulous.
Why?
Because the market may not exist.
The technology doesn't existand this is not a straight line.
In fact, we know, and we haveexperienced that you never end up
with what you start with, right?
(06:48):
The hypothesis of the, of todayis not what you will deliver.
And as you go through the journey,you progress, you learn, you pivot,
you change direction, you stop.
And once in a while you succeed.
So I like to say that innovation ingeneral, in my view, cannot be efficient.
Okay.
(07:08):
So that is a big, abig statement, radical.
But then I quickly enhance the sentencesays, but it needs to be effective, right?
So our job as innovators are corporateexplorers are really for us to
find the most way to be effective.
And we know we have to design solutionsand process where, where waste is okay.
(07:31):
and learnings are okay.
And for those, the metrics oftoday, they just don't work.
So you need to find anothermetric because having no metrics
at all is also not an option.
And the reason is because you, youcreate a huge amount of frustration.
The team is anxious because they knowthe top management can, can pull the
plug at any seconds for any reason.
(07:53):
And there is no transparency andvisibility when they can do this.
Management is frustrated becausethey feel the team is running
in circle and not delivering anyresults and they're wasting money.
So you create that, that, thatsituation where, where it's unhealthy.
So we try to we are Germancompany, so we like metrics.
So we're like, okay, howcan we, Break this paradigm.
(08:15):
How do we design a, a system andmetrics that enable us to provide
that transparency, that, thatvisibility without falling into the
trap, to measuring the wrong thing?
Aidan McCullen (08:26):
And charles before we come to le and talk about hunter
strategy i just wanted to askabout the reporting structure.
Because obviously your executiveleadership team understand the
metrics need to be different,but one of the big challenges in
so many organizations i talk to manyguests that we have on the show is.
(08:48):
Perhaps the corporate explorers reportingto a CFO and the CFO by their very
nature is not going to agree to thefact that we're inefficient here, we're
gonna we're gonna create a lot of wasteand they're gonna be gone oh my god and
panicking all the time and how to dealwith that so you obviously have had to.
(09:10):
Evolve overtime to get that to be themindset of the organization but there has
to be education of that for the seniorleadership team particularly if it was a
stable exploitation business in the past.
Chalres Vaillant (09:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's the natural evolution.
I mean the, the senior managementand, and the, the mandate of
the CEO, the CFO, the c-suites.
They need to understand that, and they allsmart folks and they all went to business
school and they're studying strategyand lead startup and reading the book.
(09:44):
So typically they are informed about it.
In fact this whole concept of exploration,exploitation really was started with
our CEO bring that concept and, and,and from discussion that he has had.
So I personally reportedthe CFO of Mann Hummel.
And she she understand that.
(10:05):
In fact, she has a very goodconcept of innovation herself
in the way we drive this.
So we have good dialogue now for sureglobally we have to deliver on numbers
and we have to be profitable and so on.
The world is changingat such a rapid pace.
Transformation, being digital, beingAI, being everything around us is
(10:28):
changing at such a rapid pace thatthe C suite cannot ignore,, those
type , of changes and, in direction.
And, and therefore they rely, and theyare request, requested and required by
their shareholders to innovate beyondthe core because innovating only on
the core will not guarantee success.
(10:50):
In fact, it will probably guarantee.
Long term failure of the corporation.
Aidan McCullen (10:54):
Amen i'm your brother with all of this so let's talk about
your approach and using the hunterstrategy and i'm gonna share on the
screen i'm not gonna give anythingaway the different animals and how
you approach those different animalsover to you to take us through this
Ellie Amirnasr (11:13):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Before I start to explain the journey, of hunting, in a corporate environment,
I just want to second what Charles saidinnovation by nature is inefficient for.
Corporate standardizedprocess, I would say, right?
Because for a good reason,corporate is coming in standardizing
(11:36):
their processes and everything.
And innovation requires fasteriteration and understanding of
what that what the learnings areand then building on top of that.
And , there's not much standardizationthat you can actually put on that because
you're changing direction quite often.
Moving to the hunter strategy.
(11:57):
It's exactly what it is.
If you're looking at an animal,how it's going to move, how
fast it's moving and everything.
This is changing , your strategy as well.
So imagine five differenttypes and size of animal.
Imagine a fly, a mouse, arabbit, a deer, and an elephant.
(12:19):
So the size of each animalrepresents the size of a deal that
you can get out of a business.
So fly, for example, represents what Iwould say a consumer market, for example.
So it means that the dealsize is around 10 or less.
The mouse is representing thesize of one deal of 100 or less.
(12:44):
The rabbit is around 1,000 or less for one deal.
And then, the deer is 10,000 and goes up to elephant.
And you can go to dinosaurs andany size of the animals that you
want to actually put in there.
This concept coming from ChristopheJans, says, if you want to build a
hundred million dollar business in thisworld, and you're going after fly type
(13:08):
businesses, which is 10 or less, yourequire to acquire about 10 million
customers to actually get to that point.
And if you're going to an elephantsize customer, it's around, 000
customers you have , to acquire toget to 100 million dollar business.
(13:29):
Okay, what does that tell us?
When you have somebody that has tomake a decision for a 10 or less, they
usually make that decision in an hour.
Or less than that.
It's either a click of abutton or something like this.
So your business type and the decisionmaking process is completely different.
(13:50):
When somebody has to make achoice for spending 100, 000,
they usually take their time.
They do more evaluation.
So the sales cycles are differentfor these type of animals
and these type of businesses.
Why am I explaining it like this?
Because at Mann and Hummel,we actually work backwards.
(14:11):
We look at our targets where wewant to be in 10 years, 20 years.
And then we reverse engineeredthat business process and come
back for KPIs in today's world.
Okay.
So it means that if I'm trying to reachto a hundred million dollar business
for an elephant type business meansthat I have to acquire 1000 customers.
(14:34):
My sales cycle is most probablybetween three to six months.
So how many customers in whatperiod of time do I have to acquire?
And we start working backwardourselves like, What is the
pipeline that we have to build?
How long does it take to actually getfrom the time that we launched this
product to acquire the first customer?
(14:56):
What is the growth curveand all of these things?
And then we developed the KPIs based onthat instead of jumping in and putting
like, okay, so we want to get a hundredmillion dollars in 10 years, we divide
it by I don't know, 10, we create thishockey stick and we're good to go.
And then we constantly get frustratedby not hitting our sales targets.
(15:18):
If you ask Charles, he will tell youthat we constantly, at the beginning,
we used to set targets and not reachit and set targets and not reach it.
If you show that in the CFO, ofcourse they get frustrated because
they plan for every single dollarthat you're planning to bring in.
And if you're not bringing that.
It's, it doesn't make sense for investors.
(15:40):
It's very important to showthe return on their investment.
Not necessarily right at the beginning.
The return on investment is indollar that you can bring in.
It's actually about the customer base thatyou're building the outreach that you will
have, the market that you are creating.
And we started putting KPIs on those.
(16:01):
At the beginning, especially when we weredoing exploration, and if you cannot hit
those targets, you definitely cannot getsales if you cannot even get one customer
to talk to you, if you can't even createa proposal or quote for 10 customer
of the size that you're talking about.
You will never actually getto making any sales anyway.
(16:25):
and then we communicate these withthe stakeholders and the management,
so they will see the progress.
And it's actually, I wouldsay a business practice.
To go through these efforts that youhave to actually deliver or close a deal.
And that's basically theconcept of Hunter strategy.
(16:46):
Now, if you want to do fly, you'renot going to go and sit with
the customer and talk to them.
Most probably it's an e commerce platform.
The metrics for e commerce platform,the way that customers hear from
you is completely different.
And then we change.
Our, approach for eachbusiness based on that.
(17:06):
Which sometimes it might be that it mightnot be the same practice that today,
for example, Mann and Hummel is using.
So we avoid the standardization ofthe process that they have and try to
test these ideas with this strategy.
Aidan McCullen (17:21):
I wanted to Lean into something you said that is so important.
And it links to what Charles saidearlier on is that you have created
some type of relationship with aCFO or whoever you're reporting
the metrics to, and we, and I've.
been guilty of this miss communicateor just go finger in the air and
(17:43):
guess what those metrics will be notnot being sure of when you be able
to deliver those but in the past.
I'm sure some people still do thiswe blame them we can it goes those
dinosaurs they don't understand etcbut when you point the finger this
three point back to yourself and yougotta realize that well i didn't.
(18:04):
Even do my homework here to understandwhat are the right metrics how to your
point different businesses in differentbusiness models all have different
metrics and then to be able to capturethose and then use them the next time
that's not something that is even,interesting to many many people who
(18:24):
work in innovation cuz it's not thefuzzy ideation stage i'm what i'm so
struck by by you by man and Hummel, isthat you guys have created a process.
But even that process evolvesconsistently and constantly.
And I'd love you to tell us a little bitabout that because you use your processes
to actually innovate your processes.
Chalres Vaillant (18:46):
Yeah, we do.
You can't stand still, otherwise itdoesn't work because the last thing you
want is to have a very academic process.
And I think everyone probablyof the listeners having that
situation you come with someone andsomebody rolled their eyes like,
yeah, but this is very academic.
This is not the real world.
We have to make money here, right?
So I, it's okay to have thosetype of hypothesis and concepts.
(19:11):
But they have to work for you andwhat works for us probably doesn't
work for other firms, right?
So I you you have to adapt I thinkany type of framework that you're
using Being the horizon one, two,three the dual transformation,
you know the Bains framework.
It doesn't matter all of those inmy view they need to be adapted
and and the way you measure thisneeds to be adapted as Well, what we
(19:33):
have done over the last 12 months.
So you understand now that especiallyfor exploratory type of business,
we are actually forcing us.
We don't, we do notmeasure financial metrics.
We measure progress metric growth metrics.
So we're looking atcustomers are acquired.
Systems we're delivering,the usage of the platform.
(19:55):
So depending on the type ofbusiness, we disconnect the numbers.
Now we do have, we track sales becausewe also track cashflow and we, we, we
try to replicate for our corporate.
the same type of of of,of focus on the cash.
So we, we, we look at precash flow on a monthly basis.
(20:18):
And then , the owner of that business orthat team needs to understand how much
he's getting from his customer, how muchhe's investing, but that's really from a
pure cashflow perspective, making sure.
that they understand that,
Cash is limited and cash is precious.
But regarding , the patience that wewant to put on the pro on the project and
(20:40):
to avoid this discussion about how manyzombies do we have in the organization?
This is where we have allthis progress mertics, right?
and here over the last year, we reallythink we thought about a method where
we look at five dimensions, the productmarket fit, which is very important,
the very early stage of initiation, Thenwe look at scalability of the business.
(21:03):
We look at profitability of thebusiness, but much later on.
So depending on later stage of thegrowth, we look at unfair advantage.
Are we leveraging the capabilityof the organization to give
us this unfair advantage?
And the market size.
Now, are we attacking, the point thatEli was mentioning with the animals,
it's nice if the side of the businessis 10, 000 for every for every acquired
(21:28):
business, but if there's only 5 in theworld, you're not gonna so the question
is, do we even want to get this?
So, let's make sure we don'tend up with a niche business.
And the reason why this is so important,that the target is so important.
addressable market issignificant is because the
chance of success are very low.
And we have to be honest.
And this go back to my nonefficient is I need to be effective.
(21:50):
So I got to make sure that if I placemy bet into that quadrant, I need to
do the best job possible, but if I getthere, you need to provide huge reward
because otherwise when you make thenumbers game it just doesn't add up.
So that is and that's, youtalked about the evolution.
So I think this, this new, new typeof metric that we are just currently
(22:13):
deploying and it's really helped theteam to really speak the Language.
people speak about product marketfits and they understand, okay, next.
six month cycle, we will focus ondemonstrating and validating that our
product has a good product market fit.
In the past, we used to ask the questions,do you have a product market fit?
(22:35):
Yes, we do.
We have one paying customer.
Now we asking, okay, show me evidencethat you have product market Fit.
show me evidence that you can scale up.
So I'm not I appreciate a discussion,but I, I I don't take it for, You need
to demonstrate with data that you havea product market, that you're scalable,
(22:56):
that you're profitable and that you'releveraging the company capabilities.
So it's a little bit more, in depth andskin in the game type of things, a little
bit more difficult about the discussion.
And but it provide thattransparency between the team.
Because at the end, the management,in my view, the management does
(23:20):
not have the capability to runthose new businesses right?
So what got you here won't get you there.
We know how to run the core business,but as a CTO, I don't know how to code.
I don't know how to design sort ofthe chemistry that we're working on.
So I have to trust that myassociates are competent.
What I can do is provide theframework and time box, a space.
(23:41):
for them to innovate, forthem to show progress.
We are very clear on that timeframeand what are the objective to achieve.
And then we get at the end of the cycleand we can look look at the data and
say, are we happy with the progress?
Are we not happy?
Do we give it another chance or we don't?
Aidan McCullen (23:59):
We've talked about managing different businesses, how to
hunt businesses like Ellie talked about,but one of the things that consistently
comes up is resource allocation.
The way I think about what you're doingis you have many businesses like plates
on sticks and you have to give themdifferent energy, different resources
over time, different money allocation,people allocation, energy allocation,
(24:22):
time allocation of leadership energy.
But one of the things that I see alot is businesses Mature businesses
do not invest R&D money like properR&D money versus incremental or just
business as usual improvements thatthey label as innovation that are so
(24:42):
far away from R& D so even when they getgovernment grants this happens where.
that money doesn't go to where itreally needs to do to your point
charles what got you here won't get youthere in the future how do you manage
that resource allocation to be ableto protect funds, to go that's proper
R&D money that's not to be used for
Chalres Vaillant (25:05):
We like the analogy now, and Ellie told
us about the hunter strategy.
So if you think about going hunting, howdo you have the best equipment, right?
If you go hunting with a slingshotand three stone in your pocket,
it's going to be hard to,
feed yourself or the family.
So you need to have enough resources.
(25:26):
If you think about the universalmetrics corporation are using to look
at the capability of an organizationto innovate is a very simple one.
It's R& D investment of thepercent of net sales or sales.
Yeah.
So this is what is reported themost innovative company Tesla
(25:46):
is spending over 15 percent oftheir, of their sales on R& D.
And then you can go through, Google,you can look at all this company.
Yeah.
But if you think about this, this R& Dbudget is, it needs to be now distributed
between different types of R& D work.
And corporations like Mann andHummel, we are an industrial
(26:07):
company in the B2B space.
We spend and we use a lotof that financial resources
into incremental tasks.
So some people call thatincremental innovation.
In fact, at Mann Hummel, wedon't call that innovation.
We call that R& D work.
So what are those?
Those are, material cost reductionsto get, you know, a little bit
(26:30):
more gross margin on your product.
It's the change of label on the product.
You're selling a product to acustomer, you make a private label
tomorrow, it's the same product.
The box needs to be different.
And so on.
You need an engineer to create a newpart number, loading the systems.
It's very incremental, help you tosurvive, very important to your business.
(26:52):
It's not going to help you bringtomorrow on the map, right?
So then if you look at the percent ofsales, on the other percent of sales, and
you start to bucket what you're doing.
So you look at incremental spend.
You can look at coreinnovation, true innovation.
What are those?
(27:12):
Those are innovation that.
drive USP, differentiation, brand equity,where you can go into the market and get
market share because your product is somuch better than whatever is exists today,
either in your core business, or maybesome adjacent business that you have.
And then you have the breakthrough orbreakaway type of business, which is
(27:35):
the revolutionary type of thingsthat has a high chance of return,
but also low chance of success.
So you need to look at this becausetoday, and this is the way we look
at it, we spend the majority of R&D spend on this incremental task.
Therefore we are indirectly
(27:56):
starving the true investment.
Our CEO, I was with him last weekand he was saying, if we would have
a better way to use that investment,there's so many more innovation
we can bring to market right then.
We not the ideas and the potentialproject is not the The problem
is how do we finance all this?
While, keeping theincremental business as well.
(28:16):
So now you think about digitaltransformation that we are
all talking about, right?
AI generated designs.
How do you quote a product without havinga human behind the keyboard and so on.
So you can now take this majority of yourR& D spend And through transformation,
internal transformation, how do you drivebetter processes that you can really
(28:41):
take the majority of the human task out?
So that is, that processstill needs to take place.
Designing a new label, changingthe color of a product, but that
is done basically almost automated.
You have few people controllingit, and so you, you really drive,
Now you talk about efficiency.
Now you drive this efficiencyof this, As much as possible.
(29:02):
So the amount of R& D resources anddollars and dollars spent on that is
as low as possible, the same output.
And every dollar you save, now youreinvest into creative type of work that
require experimentation, that requirecreativity, that require because that
process To the majority of its work,you cannot digitalize, creativity is
(29:28):
still to this point very much a humanfunction that, that we need people to do.
Aidan McCullen (29:33):
Fantastic i have one last question for each and this is
just dawned on me and it's probablya question i should ask most of my
guests it was, you've obviously beenthrough a huge evolution with this
journey you've probably trialed lotsof different tools and tactics you've
landed on the hunter strategy as oneto use for yourself as a framework and.
(29:54):
Through doing the show.
And for those people that are watchingus, all the books behind me, there are
tons and tons of strategy and tacticsand different ways of doing this, but
choosing one and then making it workfor you is actually really, really
important, but also then having thewillingness to throw it out and, and
try new and evolve it and frameworks,I think that's so, so important.
(30:18):
But the question I have, Ellie, I'llcome to you first is going back to
your earlier self, when you startedoff on the innovation or the corporate
explorer journey, what would be theone piece of advice that you'd give
yourself if you had the time machineto go back to yourself and go, Hey,
Ellie Don't do this don't do this thingthat you're about to do because this
(30:39):
will not pay out well for the futurei'd love you to share that the piece
of advice you give to an early versionof le in a corporate explorer sense,
Ellie Amirnasr (30:52):
There will be, there will be multiple things,
but one of the things is I would
be
Aidan McCullen (30:58):
coming
Ellie Amirnasr (30:59):
the book is coming.
Yeah.
I will put the book on that.
Be courageous, really.
I think I self doubted a lot at thebeginning and Put myself a little bit in
a, in a, in a quiet seat and start likethe let observing some of the things, but
(31:20):
be courageous to try and show evidence.
I would say a lot of tools are available.
People will talk, but two thingsthat actually helped us with evolving
to where we are is having topmanagement who are good listeners.
And they allow, or they, they actuallytrust and empower, and then also
(31:43):
courageous employees that are willingto try and bring evidence and lead up.
So we met somewhere inthe middle together.
And right at the beginning, if Iwould say, I would have started
much more with her, but I alsodidn't know much back then.
That was like, is it true?
Am I going to sound stupid?
(32:04):
Yeah, but you will learn only if youjust sound stupid and then observe and
then come back and reflect and thengo back again and correct yourself.
So I would say out of a lot of otherthings, I would be just more courageous
to to try different things and thenjust come up with best practices and
(32:24):
lessons learned as much as I can.
Aidan McCullen (32:27):
brilliant advice and charles what's your piece
of advice for an earlier charles
Chalres Vaillant (32:33):
How much time do we have?
Aidan McCullen (32:36):
that's a whole
different that's a whole different series.
Chalres Vaillant (32:42):
I will start with time is the only resource
you don't control, right?
And, and, and because of this,there's maybe two things that come
to mind when you ask this question.
The one is I would startmuch earlier partnerships.
We tend to be a little bit naive that weare the only smart people on the planet.
(33:03):
And if you don't wear the, the businesscard of the company, then then then,
the work we are doing with a corporateventure capital and working with
startup and try to leverage theirtech and to combine it with yours.
We started that quite late and Iwish we would have started earlier.
(33:24):
We still not that great at it,but we are really working to
try to leverage it because.
If you can access a tech that existsalready IP and then you license it and
then you build a adjacent product withit and you speed to market is phenomenal.
So that's number one.
The second is.
the toy here in the, in the breakawayinnovation this, this new business
(33:46):
model that everybody's talking aboutand very few people are able to do,
when you do this, you, you keep youreyes off the, the, the core business
and the core business is so valuable.
You have customer relationship,you know what you're doing.
The problem is what we talkedearlier, you're consuming so much
of your R& D on this incremental.
So if you can have the disciplineto really say, I'm gonna,
(34:08):
really innovative on my core.
This is in terms of, and now thatwill be the first time I talked about
financial metrics, return on innovation.
as the best chance intothat middle segment, right?
We, we tend to go to the extreme.
So focus on, on the one where thereturn is the best, because you have
the capability, you have the brandname, you have the experience, you
(34:29):
have the branding, the confidence.
So don't, don't try to go too far out.
It's okay to put some bets onthe, on the future, but leverage
where you are and then evolve thatbusiness with initial services,
smartification, IOT, whatever it is.
to make that core businesseven more valuable to you.
Aidan McCullen (34:47):
Wazoku,.
(35:10):
ellie i'm here now andcharles for joining us.
Ellie Amirnasr (35:16):
Thank you for having us.
Chalres Vaillant (35:17):
my pleasure.
A new business innovation in corporations is just like a venture.
(00:04):
managing it as an operational businessor corporate r and d project is a recipe
for failure . One common pitfall isapplying key performance indicators kpi
is too early, is it stifles risk takingand prevents innovation instead our guests
argue in favor of using non financial KPIsthat indicate progress at early stages
(00:30):
of any new business validation.
These serve as a compass that helpsthe innovation team, stakeholders and
management navigate their way to success.
Well- defined progress and successmetrics when combined with the right
understanding on how to build ahundred million dollar business enable
business owners to evaluate the actualperformance of their business in
(00:54):
almost real time at Mann and hummeltoday's guest used , a hunter strategy
concept to design growth validationprocess for their digital ventures,
focusing on exploration type businesses.
Now, before I introduce those guests,I want to thank our sponsor of the
(01:15):
corporate explorer series, Wazoku.
Wazoku helps large organizationscreate effective, sustainable
innovation ecosystems that accelerateefficiency gains and new value growth.
It does this through intelligententerprise software that connects
and harnesses the power of employees,suppliers, startups, universities,
and the unique Wazoku crowd of over700, 000 plus global problem solvers.
(01:41):
And Wazoku call that , . Collectiveintelligence and you
can find wazoku at www.
wazoku.
com now to today's guests and thelatest episode of the corporate explorer
series called "validation, managing thejourney from concept to scale", we are
joined by two corporate explorers whohave done just that, Ellie Amirnasr
(02:06):
and charles welcome to the show
Ellie Amirnasr (02:09):
Thank you.
Chalres Vaillant (02:10):
Thank you for having us
Aidan McCullen (02:11):
it's great to have you on the show guys we have so much to talk
about and you have so much wisdom, i'mscar tissue and arrows in your back to
share with our audience because you'vebeen through this many times and i was
so intrigued to hear about your storybecause, one of the things, We talk
(02:32):
about innovation all the time is howmetrics are broken but we also don't
realize that metrics can be broken evenfor the innovation process because the
innovation process changes dependingon the size of the opportunity you're
going after whether it's b2c b2b whatlife cycle stage that business is that.
(02:54):
Opportunity is that etc etc sothere's loads to get through today
but i thought we'd start up firstby explaining who man and home is,
to you guys are in that business
Chalres Vaillant (03:05):
My name is Charles Villante.
I'm the CTO and also CDO of Mannheim alsoin charge of the technology arm and the
digitalization arm of the corporation.
We are a privately ownedGerman based corporation.
We have been in business for 80plus years and our focus is to
(03:25):
separate the useful from the harmful.
In other terms, we do filtration.
That's what we do.
Any type of filter.
, of course, filters are everywhere inyour daily life, from the food that
you eat, the air that you breathe,the water that you use for your
laundry or washing yourself, allthe way to the way you go to work.
(03:49):
We do about 32 filter everysecond, 24 seven, and we'll be
located a location globally.
One of those so calledhidden champion of Germany.
Ellie Amirnasr (04:00):
I'm Elie Amirnasr as you mentioned.
And I've been with Mann and Hummelfor a little bit over 11 years now.
I studied material science.
And joined, HomelizeInnovation Project Manager.
First I was more into the innovationprocess for core business development.
Then in 2018, I started the journeyof transformational business
(04:26):
development and digitalization.
And since then I've been dealingwith corporate metrics for startups
and startups behavior for corporate.
And currently I'm managing thedigital ventures and digital
business for Mann and Hummel.
Aidan McCullen (04:45):
let's get stuck in.
We have so much to get through.
Many of our audienceare corporate explorers.
They're change makers, transformationartists inside organizations
and also startup founders.
And we know that traditionalmetrics and measurement.
Are the bane of so many of our listenerslet's share why that is from your
experience before we get into solutionsand i'd love you then Ellie to take
(05:09):
us through the hunter strategy butmaybe charles will start with you and
what's so broken about these metrics,
Chalres Vaillant (05:16):
Naturally when you do innovation, you are investing
quite a bit of resources whichis manpower, but also financial.
Investments that at a firm level,you're competing against other sorts of
investment and your top management andyour CFO want to make sure that those
(05:37):
investments are put at a good use.
So naturally,
the way you run your core business it'svery efficient, you know how to measure
it, you measure your ROI on project,you measure your return on investment,
your time to market and you're ableto do this in a very efficient way.
We typically tend to call this, thisthe exploitation type of business.
(06:03):
That the market risk isvery limited or inexistent.
You want to enter a new marketwith a product, so you have
to work on the technology.
So in my view, it's pretty straight line.
And you know what the objectiveis, you know where you want
to go, and then you go there.
And the typical metric thatpeople use , are okay for that.
But then when you go into more, breakthrough innovation, transformation
(06:27):
B, depending on how you call this, right?
It's a new market, newbusiness model, this type of
exploratory type of innovation.
Yeah.
it becomes a bit more nebulous.
Why?
Because the market may not exist.
The technology doesn't existand this is not a straight line.
In fact, we know, and we haveexperienced that you never end up
with what you start with, right?
(06:48):
The hypothesis of the, of todayis not what you will deliver.
And as you go through the journey,you progress, you learn, you pivot,
you change direction, you stop.
And once in a while you succeed.
So I like to say that innovation ingeneral, in my view, cannot be efficient.
Okay.
(07:08):
So that is a big, abig statement, radical.
But then I quickly enhance the sentencesays, but it needs to be effective, right?
So our job as innovators are corporateexplorers are really for us to
find the most way to be effective.
And we know we have to design solutionsand process where, where waste is okay.
(07:31):
and learnings are okay.
And for those, the metrics oftoday, they just don't work.
So you need to find anothermetric because having no metrics
at all is also not an option.
And the reason is because you, youcreate a huge amount of frustration.
The team is anxious because they knowthe top management can, can pull the
plug at any seconds for any reason.
(07:53):
And there is no transparency andvisibility when they can do this.
Management is frustrated becausethey feel the team is running
in circle and not delivering anyresults and they're wasting money.
So you create that, that, thatsituation where, where it's unhealthy.
So we try to we are Germancompany, so we like metrics.
So we're like, okay, howcan we, Break this paradigm.
(08:15):
How do we design a, a system andmetrics that enable us to provide
that transparency, that, thatvisibility without falling into the
trap, to measuring the wrong thing?
Aidan McCullen (08:26):
And charles before we come to le and talk about hunter
strategy i just wanted to askabout the reporting structure.
Because obviously your executiveleadership team understand the
metrics need to be different,but one of the big challenges in
so many organizations i talk to manyguests that we have on the show is.
(08:48):
Perhaps the corporate explorers reportingto a CFO and the CFO by their very
nature is not going to agree to thefact that we're inefficient here, we're
gonna we're gonna create a lot of wasteand they're gonna be gone oh my god and
panicking all the time and how to dealwith that so you obviously have had to.
(09:10):
Evolve overtime to get that to be themindset of the organization but there has
to be education of that for the seniorleadership team particularly if it was a
stable exploitation business in the past.
Chalres Vaillant (09:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's the natural evolution.
I mean the, the senior managementand, and the, the mandate of
the CEO, the CFO, the c-suites.
They need to understand that, and they allsmart folks and they all went to business
school and they're studying strategyand lead startup and reading the book.
(09:44):
So typically they are informed about it.
In fact this whole concept of exploration,exploitation really was started with
our CEO bring that concept and, and,and from discussion that he has had.
So I personally reportedthe CFO of Mann Hummel.
And she she understand that.
(10:05):
In fact, she has a very goodconcept of innovation herself
in the way we drive this.
So we have good dialogue now for sureglobally we have to deliver on numbers
and we have to be profitable and so on.
The world is changingat such a rapid pace.
Transformation, being digital, beingAI, being everything around us is
(10:28):
changing at such a rapid pace thatthe C suite cannot ignore,, those
type , of changes and, in direction.
And, and therefore they rely, and theyare request, requested and required by
their shareholders to innovate beyondthe core because innovating only on
the core will not guarantee success.
(10:50):
In fact, it will probably guarantee.
Long term failure of the corporation.
Aidan McCullen (10:54):
Amen i'm your brother with all of this so let's talk about
your approach and using the hunterstrategy and i'm gonna share on the
screen i'm not gonna give anythingaway the different animals and how
you approach those different animalsover to you to take us through this
Ellie Amirnasr (11:13):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Before I start to explain the journey, of hunting, in a corporate environment,
I just want to second what Charles saidinnovation by nature is inefficient for.
Corporate standardizedprocess, I would say, right?
Because for a good reason,corporate is coming in standardizing
(11:36):
their processes and everything.
And innovation requires fasteriteration and understanding of
what that what the learnings areand then building on top of that.
And , there's not much standardizationthat you can actually put on that because
you're changing direction quite often.
Moving to the hunter strategy.
(11:57):
It's exactly what it is.
If you're looking at an animal,how it's going to move, how
fast it's moving and everything.
This is changing , your strategy as well.
So imagine five differenttypes and size of animal.
Imagine a fly, a mouse, arabbit, a deer, and an elephant.
(12:19):
So the size of each animalrepresents the size of a deal that
you can get out of a business.
So fly, for example, represents what Iwould say a consumer market, for example.
So it means that the dealsize is around 10 or less.
The mouse is representing thesize of one deal of 100 or less.
(12:44):
The rabbit is around 1,000 or less for one deal.
And then, the deer is 10,000 and goes up to elephant.
And you can go to dinosaurs andany size of the animals that you
want to actually put in there.
This concept coming from ChristopheJans, says, if you want to build a
hundred million dollar business in thisworld, and you're going after fly type
(13:08):
businesses, which is 10 or less, yourequire to acquire about 10 million
customers to actually get to that point.
And if you're going to an elephantsize customer, it's around, 000
customers you have , to acquire toget to 100 million dollar business.
(13:29):
Okay, what does that tell us?
When you have somebody that has tomake a decision for a 10 or less, they
usually make that decision in an hour.
Or less than that.
It's either a click of abutton or something like this.
So your business type and the decisionmaking process is completely different.
(13:50):
When somebody has to make achoice for spending 100, 000,
they usually take their time.
They do more evaluation.
So the sales cycles are differentfor these type of animals
and these type of businesses.
Why am I explaining it like this?
Because at Mann and Hummel,we actually work backwards.
(14:11):
We look at our targets where wewant to be in 10 years, 20 years.
And then we reverse engineeredthat business process and come
back for KPIs in today's world.
Okay.
So it means that if I'm trying to reachto a hundred million dollar business
for an elephant type business meansthat I have to acquire 1000 customers.
(14:34):
My sales cycle is most probablybetween three to six months.
So how many customers in whatperiod of time do I have to acquire?
And we start working backwardourselves like, What is the
pipeline that we have to build?
How long does it take to actually getfrom the time that we launched this
product to acquire the first customer?
(14:56):
What is the growth curveand all of these things?
And then we developed the KPIs based onthat instead of jumping in and putting
like, okay, so we want to get a hundredmillion dollars in 10 years, we divide
it by I don't know, 10, we create thishockey stick and we're good to go.
And then we constantly get frustratedby not hitting our sales targets.
(15:18):
If you ask Charles, he will tell youthat we constantly, at the beginning,
we used to set targets and not reachit and set targets and not reach it.
If you show that in the CFO, ofcourse they get frustrated because
they plan for every single dollarthat you're planning to bring in.
And if you're not bringing that.
It's, it doesn't make sense for investors.
(15:40):
It's very important to showthe return on their investment.
Not necessarily right at the beginning.
The return on investment is indollar that you can bring in.
It's actually about the customer base thatyou're building the outreach that you will
have, the market that you are creating.
And we started putting KPIs on those.
(16:01):
At the beginning, especially when we weredoing exploration, and if you cannot hit
those targets, you definitely cannot getsales if you cannot even get one customer
to talk to you, if you can't even createa proposal or quote for 10 customer
of the size that you're talking about.
You will never actually getto making any sales anyway.
(16:25):
and then we communicate these withthe stakeholders and the management,
so they will see the progress.
And it's actually, I wouldsay a business practice.
To go through these efforts that youhave to actually deliver or close a deal.
And that's basically theconcept of Hunter strategy.
(16:46):
Now, if you want to do fly, you'renot going to go and sit with
the customer and talk to them.
Most probably it's an e commerce platform.
The metrics for e commerce platform,the way that customers hear from
you is completely different.
And then we change.
Our, approach for eachbusiness based on that.
(17:06):
Which sometimes it might be that it mightnot be the same practice that today,
for example, Mann and Hummel is using.
So we avoid the standardization ofthe process that they have and try to
test these ideas with this strategy.
Aidan McCullen (17:21):
I wanted to Lean into something you said that is so important.
And it links to what Charles saidearlier on is that you have created
some type of relationship with aCFO or whoever you're reporting
the metrics to, and we, and I've.
been guilty of this miss communicateor just go finger in the air and
(17:43):
guess what those metrics will be notnot being sure of when you be able
to deliver those but in the past.
I'm sure some people still do thiswe blame them we can it goes those
dinosaurs they don't understand etcbut when you point the finger this
three point back to yourself and yougotta realize that well i didn't.
(18:04):
Even do my homework here to understandwhat are the right metrics how to your
point different businesses in differentbusiness models all have different
metrics and then to be able to capturethose and then use them the next time
that's not something that is even,interesting to many many people who
(18:24):
work in innovation cuz it's not thefuzzy ideation stage i'm what i'm so
struck by by you by man and Hummel, isthat you guys have created a process.
But even that process evolvesconsistently and constantly.
And I'd love you to tell us a little bitabout that because you use your processes
to actually innovate your processes.
Chalres Vaillant (18:46):
Yeah, we do.
You can't stand still, otherwise itdoesn't work because the last thing you
want is to have a very academic process.
And I think everyone probablyof the listeners having that
situation you come with someone andsomebody rolled their eyes like,
yeah, but this is very academic.
This is not the real world.
We have to make money here, right?
So I, it's okay to have thosetype of hypothesis and concepts.
(19:11):
But they have to work for you andwhat works for us probably doesn't
work for other firms, right?
So I you you have to adapt I thinkany type of framework that you're
using Being the horizon one, two,three the dual transformation,
you know the Bains framework.
It doesn't matter all of those inmy view they need to be adapted
and and the way you measure thisneeds to be adapted as Well, what we
(19:33):
have done over the last 12 months.
So you understand now that especiallyfor exploratory type of business,
we are actually forcing us.
We don't, we do notmeasure financial metrics.
We measure progress metric growth metrics.
So we're looking atcustomers are acquired.
Systems we're delivering,the usage of the platform.
(19:55):
So depending on the type ofbusiness, we disconnect the numbers.
Now we do have, we track sales becausewe also track cashflow and we, we, we
try to replicate for our corporate.
the same type of of of,of focus on the cash.
So we, we, we look at precash flow on a monthly basis.
(20:18):
And then , the owner of that business orthat team needs to understand how much
he's getting from his customer, how muchhe's investing, but that's really from a
pure cashflow perspective, making sure.
that they understand that,
Cash is limited and cash is precious.
But regarding , the patience that wewant to put on the pro on the project and
(20:40):
to avoid this discussion about how manyzombies do we have in the organization?
This is where we have allthis progress mertics, right?
and here over the last year, we reallythink we thought about a method where
we look at five dimensions, the productmarket fit, which is very important,
the very early stage of initiation, Thenwe look at scalability of the business.
(21:03):
We look at profitability of thebusiness, but much later on.
So depending on later stage of thegrowth, we look at unfair advantage.
Are we leveraging the capabilityof the organization to give
us this unfair advantage?
And the market size.
Now, are we attacking, the point thatEli was mentioning with the animals,
it's nice if the side of the businessis 10, 000 for every for every acquired
(21:28):
business, but if there's only 5 in theworld, you're not gonna so the question
is, do we even want to get this?
So, let's make sure we don'tend up with a niche business.
And the reason why this is so important,that the target is so important.
addressable market issignificant is because the
chance of success are very low.
And we have to be honest.
And this go back to my nonefficient is I need to be effective.
(21:50):
So I got to make sure that if I placemy bet into that quadrant, I need to
do the best job possible, but if I getthere, you need to provide huge reward
because otherwise when you make thenumbers game it just doesn't add up.
So that is and that's, youtalked about the evolution.
So I think this, this new, new typeof metric that we are just currently
(22:13):
deploying and it's really helped theteam to really speak the Language.
people speak about product marketfits and they understand, okay, next.
six month cycle, we will focus ondemonstrating and validating that our
product has a good product market fit.
In the past, we used to ask the questions,do you have a product market fit?
(22:35):
Yes, we do.
We have one paying customer.
Now we asking, okay, show me evidencethat you have product market Fit.
show me evidence that you can scale up.
So I'm not I appreciate a discussion,but I, I I don't take it for, You need
to demonstrate with data that you havea product market, that you're scalable,
(22:56):
that you're profitable and that you'releveraging the company capabilities.
So it's a little bit more, in depth andskin in the game type of things, a little
bit more difficult about the discussion.
And but it provide thattransparency between the team.
Because at the end, the management,in my view, the management does
(23:20):
not have the capability to runthose new businesses right?
So what got you here won't get you there.
We know how to run the core business,but as a CTO, I don't know how to code.
I don't know how to design sort ofthe chemistry that we're working on.
So I have to trust that myassociates are competent.
What I can do is provide theframework and time box, a space.
(23:41):
for them to innovate, forthem to show progress.
We are very clear on that timeframeand what are the objective to achieve.
And then we get at the end of the cycleand we can look look at the data and
say, are we happy with the progress?
Are we not happy?
Do we give it another chance or we don't?
Aidan McCullen (23:59):
We've talked about managing different businesses, how to
hunt businesses like Ellie talked about,but one of the things that consistently
comes up is resource allocation.
The way I think about what you're doingis you have many businesses like plates
on sticks and you have to give themdifferent energy, different resources
over time, different money allocation,people allocation, energy allocation,
(24:22):
time allocation of leadership energy.
But one of the things that I see alot is businesses Mature businesses
do not invest R&D money like properR&D money versus incremental or just
business as usual improvements thatthey label as innovation that are so
(24:42):
far away from R& D so even when they getgovernment grants this happens where.
that money doesn't go to where itreally needs to do to your point
charles what got you here won't get youthere in the future how do you manage
that resource allocation to be ableto protect funds, to go that's proper
R&D money that's not to be used for
Chalres Vaillant (25:05):
We like the analogy now, and Ellie told
us about the hunter strategy.
So if you think about going hunting, howdo you have the best equipment, right?
If you go hunting with a slingshotand three stone in your pocket,
it's going to be hard to,
feed yourself or the family.
So you need to have enough resources.
(25:26):
If you think about the universalmetrics corporation are using to look
at the capability of an organizationto innovate is a very simple one.
It's R& D investment of thepercent of net sales or sales.
Yeah.
So this is what is reported themost innovative company Tesla
(25:46):
is spending over 15 percent oftheir, of their sales on R& D.
And then you can go through, Google,you can look at all this company.
Yeah.
But if you think about this, this R& Dbudget is, it needs to be now distributed
between different types of R& D work.
And corporations like Mann andHummel, we are an industrial
(26:07):
company in the B2B space.
We spend and we use a lotof that financial resources
into incremental tasks.
So some people call thatincremental innovation.
In fact, at Mann Hummel, wedon't call that innovation.
We call that R& D work.
So what are those?
Those are, material cost reductionsto get, you know, a little bit
(26:30):
more gross margin on your product.
It's the change of label on the product.
You're selling a product to acustomer, you make a private label
tomorrow, it's the same product.
The box needs to be different.
And so on.
You need an engineer to create a newpart number, loading the systems.
It's very incremental, help you tosurvive, very important to your business.
(26:52):
It's not going to help you bringtomorrow on the map, right?
So then if you look at the percent ofsales, on the other percent of sales, and
you start to bucket what you're doing.
So you look at incremental spend.
You can look at coreinnovation, true innovation.
What are those?
(27:12):
Those are innovation that.
drive USP, differentiation, brand equity,where you can go into the market and get
market share because your product is somuch better than whatever is exists today,
either in your core business, or maybesome adjacent business that you have.
And then you have the breakthrough orbreakaway type of business, which is
(27:35):
the revolutionary type of thingsthat has a high chance of return,
but also low chance of success.
So you need to look at this becausetoday, and this is the way we look
at it, we spend the majority of R&D spend on this incremental task.
Therefore we are indirectly
(27:56):
starving the true investment.
Our CEO, I was with him last weekand he was saying, if we would have
a better way to use that investment,there's so many more innovation
we can bring to market right then.
We not the ideas and the potentialproject is not the The problem
is how do we finance all this?
While, keeping theincremental business as well.
(28:16):
So now you think about digitaltransformation that we are
all talking about, right?
AI generated designs.
How do you quote a product without havinga human behind the keyboard and so on.
So you can now take this majority of yourR& D spend And through transformation,
internal transformation, how do you drivebetter processes that you can really
(28:41):
take the majority of the human task out?
So that is, that processstill needs to take place.
Designing a new label, changingthe color of a product, but that
is done basically almost automated.
You have few people controllingit, and so you, you really drive,
Now you talk about efficiency.
Now you drive this efficiencyof this, As much as possible.
(29:02):
So the amount of R& D resources anddollars and dollars spent on that is
as low as possible, the same output.
And every dollar you save, now youreinvest into creative type of work that
require experimentation, that requirecreativity, that require because that
process To the majority of its work,you cannot digitalize, creativity is
(29:28):
still to this point very much a humanfunction that, that we need people to do.
Aidan McCullen (29:33):
Fantastic i have one last question for each and this is
just dawned on me and it's probablya question i should ask most of my
guests it was, you've obviously beenthrough a huge evolution with this
journey you've probably trialed lotsof different tools and tactics you've
landed on the hunter strategy as oneto use for yourself as a framework and.
(29:54):
Through doing the show.
And for those people that are watchingus, all the books behind me, there are
tons and tons of strategy and tacticsand different ways of doing this, but
choosing one and then making it workfor you is actually really, really
important, but also then having thewillingness to throw it out and, and
try new and evolve it and frameworks,I think that's so, so important.
(30:18):
But the question I have, Ellie, I'llcome to you first is going back to
your earlier self, when you startedoff on the innovation or the corporate
explorer journey, what would be theone piece of advice that you'd give
yourself if you had the time machineto go back to yourself and go, Hey,
Ellie Don't do this don't do this thingthat you're about to do because this
(30:39):
will not pay out well for the futurei'd love you to share that the piece
of advice you give to an early versionof le in a corporate explorer sense,
Ellie Amirnasr (30:52):
There will be, there will be multiple things,
but one of the things is I would
be
Aidan McCullen (30:58):
coming
Ellie Amirnasr (30:59):
the book is coming.
Yeah.
I will put the book on that.
Be courageous, really.
I think I self doubted a lot at thebeginning and Put myself a little bit in
a, in a, in a quiet seat and start likethe let observing some of the things, but
(31:20):
be courageous to try and show evidence.
I would say a lot of tools are available.
People will talk, but two thingsthat actually helped us with evolving
to where we are is having topmanagement who are good listeners.
And they allow, or they, they actuallytrust and empower, and then also
(31:43):
courageous employees that are willingto try and bring evidence and lead up.
So we met somewhere inthe middle together.
And right at the beginning, if Iwould say, I would have started
much more with her, but I alsodidn't know much back then.
That was like, is it true?
Am I going to sound stupid?
(32:04):
Yeah, but you will learn only if youjust sound stupid and then observe and
then come back and reflect and thengo back again and correct yourself.
So I would say out of a lot of otherthings, I would be just more courageous
to to try different things and thenjust come up with best practices and
(32:24):
lessons learned as much as I can.
Aidan McCullen (32:27):
brilliant advice and charles what's your piece
of advice for an earlier charles
Chalres Vaillant (32:33):
How much time do we have?
Aidan McCullen (32:36):
that's a whole
different that's a whole different series.
Chalres Vaillant (32:42):
I will start with time is the only resource
you don't control, right?
And, and, and because of this,there's maybe two things that come
to mind when you ask this question.
The one is I would startmuch earlier partnerships.
We tend to be a little bit naive that weare the only smart people on the planet.
(33:03):
And if you don't wear the, the businesscard of the company, then then then,
the work we are doing with a corporateventure capital and working with
startup and try to leverage theirtech and to combine it with yours.
We started that quite late and Iwish we would have started earlier.
(33:24):
We still not that great at it,but we are really working to
try to leverage it because.
If you can access a tech that existsalready IP and then you license it and
then you build a adjacent product withit and you speed to market is phenomenal.
So that's number one.
The second is.
the toy here in the, in the breakawayinnovation this, this new business
(33:46):
model that everybody's talking aboutand very few people are able to do,
when you do this, you, you keep youreyes off the, the, the core business
and the core business is so valuable.
You have customer relationship,you know what you're doing.
The problem is what we talkedearlier, you're consuming so much
of your R& D on this incremental.
So if you can have the disciplineto really say, I'm gonna,
(34:08):
really innovative on my core.
This is in terms of, and now thatwill be the first time I talked about
financial metrics, return on innovation.
as the best chance intothat middle segment, right?
We, we tend to go to the extreme.
So focus on, on the one where thereturn is the best, because you have
the capability, you have the brandname, you have the experience, you
(34:29):
have the branding, the confidence.
So don't, don't try to go too far out.
It's okay to put some bets onthe, on the future, but leverage
where you are and then evolve thatbusiness with initial services,
smartification, IOT, whatever it is.
to make that core businesseven more valuable to you.
Aidan McCullen (34:47):
Wazoku,.
(35:10):
ellie i'm here now andcharles for joining us.
Ellie Amirnasr (35:16):
Thank you for having us.
Chalres Vaillant (35:17):
my pleasure.
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