AI idol, artificial intelligence video recognition, intelligent logistics robot. When you see these cool techs, you will think you are at the scene of an industry conference. In fact, this is Unilever's third Innovation Day. At the beginning of 2020, a total of 18 start-ups came to Unilever's China headquarters, bringing many trendy "cool techs" on the market to attractUnileverThe participation and experience of many employees.
AI+ video industry unicorn enterprise, polar chain technology
Guozi intelligent logistics robot is simulating the transportation of goods on the spot.
Unilever Innovation Day event, hosted by Unilever's innovation team "Creative +", aims to bring more external cutting-edge innovation projects to the company's internal business units, stimulate internal innovation development, and optimize business growth models. bring a new experience to consumers. On the other hand, we also hope to send a signal of cooperation to the industry and start-ups and extend an olive branch to the outside world.
This year is the third Innovation Day. According to Creative + introduction, the focus of the first two sessions is on how to use technology to empower business and the cooperation model with start-ups, while this year's focus is onDiscussion on how to realize from POC (proof of concept) to large-scale application。Innovation moves towards "scale"
In 2019, Creative Plus completed a total of 19 projects, two of which went to scale. Within Unilever, scale is defined as the startup's solution is applied by more than two business units or expanded to a certain amount of investment in the same project.
Whale is a company that has just been founded for 2 years, but from the point of view of Creative +, it is a significant project and one of the two enterprises moving towards "scale".
The cooperation between the two sides stems from the second Innovation Day. In early 2019, the strategy came to the second Innovation Day for the first time with the "Future Digital Store" project, which attracted the attention of many business departments, and the cooperation between the two sides began.
The strategy allows everyone to "anticipate" the store of the future in advance.
The launch of the strategy is different from the traditional smart shelves that only place goods and price tags, and will eventually be used in Unilever's offline channels. Through the human screen interaction with consumers in the offline shopping environment, precision marketing is extended to offline channels to achieve a real omni-channel business data closed loop. On the other hand, the immersive shopping environment not only gives consumers a digital experience, but also makes shopping more efficient.
According to the introduction, it took about half a year from getting to know Unilever to landing Pilot. "there has been a lot of running-in, and we will review the previous plan regularly, adjust it according to the new needs, and constantly improve the plan."
After a year of trial, Unilever has landed smart shelves at 16 points across the country, and more than 180 points are being tested.Unilever's internal innovation chain
At present, it seems that large enterprises are more cautious in their investment in innovation projects, and most of the operations are carried out on a pilot basis, and then on a large scale. Among them, how to evaluate the feasibility of innovative projects, many enterprises have their own methodology.
Unilever's open innovation project in China was launched in 2015. After several years of exploration, a relatively perfect internal system has been formed.
As an outpost of innovation, Entrepreneurship + is responsible for screening high-quality start-ups with potential joint points with Unilever business in the market.. Usually, the quality of a start-up is evaluated from several dimensions, such as founder background, rotation, investor background, company location, business scope, whether there is a successful business case, and so on.
Startups after creativity + evaluation will be introduced to business units.The business department is not only the actual partner of the project, but also the budget support of the project.Therefore, the business department will judge whether the project needs to be landed from whether it can bring help and growth to the business, and the assessment of the success of POC lies in whether it can complete the preset KPI and whether it can be copied or expanded.
In addition to Innovation Day, in 2019, Creative + partnered with business units to launch a hackathon to set business issues as propositions to test the technological maturity of start-ups and their understanding of Unilever's business scenarios.
Startups have a weaker understanding of the business scenarios of large companies than mature suppliers, especially those with technology backgrounds.This is the feedback from the innovation departments of many large enterprises. If a start-up with a technology background is committed to serving a large enterprise on the B side, it needs to make more efforts in the understanding of the business scenario.
When it comes to the planning of innovative projects in 2020, Creative ideas + saidMay no longer pay more attention to the innovation of the project as in the previous two years, but will pay more attention to the application and replicable level.Among themThe application of C2M customization and 5G in the supply chain and marketing side will be the focus of Creative + this year.In the future, in form, Creative + also says it will create more opportunities for face-to-face in-depth discussions between startups and internal business units.
Pay more attention to the scale of the year, I do not know how many such "1/2" will emerge.Can't see enough.
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