Introducing FORGE, a new corporate innovation programme for collaboration, connection and consultancy
A partnership between e27, Rainmaking and PwC aims to find ‘corporate ready’ startups and facilitate an eventual pilot programme
e27 CEO Mohan Belani announcing FORGE
Startups move quickly, are highly adaptable, but often struggle to survive long enough to compete. On the other hand, corporates have of a large pool of resources, immense connections but are less adaptable and adjust slowly to change.
And yet, these days it is increasingly important that these two types of businesses work together.
This new reality is why Southeast Asian media company e27, the professional services conglomerate PricewaterhouseCoopers and a venture builder named Rainmaking announced the launch of FORGE, a corporate innovation programme designed to deliver implementation projects to help corporations and startups work together.
The goal of the programme will be the following:
Create commercial collaborations
Build connections and foster engagement
Find ways to integrate products and services within existing market demand.
“To me, FORGE is basically a way to help close the gaps between corporates and startups. Corporates always want to know how to engage with startups and they can do so via this programme,” said Jowynne Khor, the COO of e27.
She added that closing the corporate/startup gap is something the ecosystem is striving to accomplish.
The three companies will work together to identify specific pain-points before identifying “corporate-ready” startups to create value-added opportunities for the corporations. Ideally, the FORGE programme would lead to the testing of pilot programmes between startups and corporations.
“A recent benchmarking study conducted by PwC globally found that 54 per cent of companies struggle to align innovation and business strategy,” said the PwC Singapore Financial Services and FinTech Leader, Antony Eldridge in a statement.
“FORGE aims to address precisely this struggle by bringing together corporate ready solutions from startups and organisations that need these practical solutions for a win-win approach to innovation.”
The following is a breakdown of how each company plans to facilitate the FORGE programme.
e27 will use its network across Asia to pinpoint and engage the relevant startups.
Rainmaking will bring its experience in corporate innovation to deliver the initiatives.
PwC will provide consultancy and help corporates leverage the innovative technologies.
The Asia Managing Director for Rainmaking, Steven Tong, explained it as such,
“Having worked with corporate partners globally to help them formulate and implement their innovation strategies, we have seen a real need for a very sophisticated understanding of emerging technologies and global startup ecosystems when selecting appropriate startups to solve pressing needs among corporates.”
The programme was announced to kick-off Echelon Asia 2017, a two-day tech event in Singapore from June 28-29.
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