PwC’s Academy to help managers unleash power of innovation within corporates

PwC’s Academy Sri Lanka will play a pioneering role in helping organisations and their senior executives understand and embrace the importance of innovation with the launch of a specialised 11 day certificate course, to help executives, including managers move ahead with changing times by spearheading innovation within the organisation to ensure business success and survival. 

According to the PwC’s Innovation benchmark survey, “Moreover, companies applying customer-engagement strategies that employ design thinking and user-driven requirements from ideation to product/service launch are about twice as likely as their survey peers to expect growth of 15% or more over the next five years.”

Strategy, not size, matters in innovation: spend Improving the financial return on innovation is ultimately the name of the game. But when it comes to getting results, it’s not so much about the size of your budget. It’s about how effectively you spend it – from strategy through execution. Roughly half the companies participating in PwC’s Innovation Benchmark think that their innovation efforts have had a ‘great’ impact on driving their revenue growth, with an equally significant impact on cost management. And nearly all companies believe there has been at least a moderately positive impact on both topline and bottom-line growth.

The Corporate Innovation Certificate Course, the first of its kind to be launched in Sri Lanka, will be conducted by international industry experts, who have a proven track record in helping local and international organisations master the art of corporate innovation.

The certificate course which will kick off on October 06, 2017, has been designed to provide managers with tools, techniques and insights on how to innovate and spearhead disruption and create new markets. Unlike traditional certificate courses, the specialised course will consist of real life case studies and highly interactive exercises to help participants gather a more in depth knowledge and experience on how they can be the change within their organisation. 

The faculty which will conduct the program will comprise of Dr. Ravi Fernando – Executive in Residence at the INSEAD Business School, who comes with a wealth of experience in branding and also from having served across top multinationals; Dr. Bettina von Stamm, known as a  visionary thinker in the field of innovation, and has focused on enabling innovation in large organisations since 1992; Jan Spruijt – who lectures on innovation management, and founder of Innovative Dutch; and Tracey Hamilton – a senior executive who has worked in media, creative, client and consulting organisations, and is known for a successful career in solving commercial business problems creatively for top blue chip firms.

During the program, the resource persons will help participants understand why it is increasingly important for corporates to embrace innovation and be creative, and why everyone in an organisation should make it their responsibility to innovate, and should not only rely on a Research and Development team to come up with innovation. The experts will share practical tools and conceptual frameworks, to drive participants to understand how to convert ideas into reality and ensure innovations will help enhancing the bottom-line of the companies. 

The course which will conclude on 16 December will cover a comprehensive range of important topics including; a two day session on ‘Innovation and Leadership in Emerging Economies’ by Dr. Bettina von Stamm on 6 and 7 October, followed by Dr. Ravi Fernando who will speak on ‘Blue Ocean Strategies & Strategic Corporate Sustainability in Emerging Markets’ on 27 and 28 October. On 10 and 11 November, Jan Spruijt will share his insights during a session on ‘Open Innovation’, followed by Tracey Hamilton speaking on ‘Design Thinking, Embedding Design Thinking to Corporate Strategy’ on 24 and 25 November. The course will conclude following a three-day session from 14 to 16 December, whereby Dr. Stamm will return to share his expertise on ‘How to Disrupt your Competitors Through Innovative Business Models’. 

The participants will receive an important boost at the program as the resource persons conducting the course will focus extensively on three key areas covering Open Innovation, Design Thinking and Co-Creating Business Models with Customers and Partners, which were recognised as the top emerging innovation models for corporates across the globe, as revealed in the PwC’s Innovation Benchmark Survey

At the end of the program, participants will acquire a deeper knowledge on the latest business tools and techniques which will help drive innovation and drive change in an organisation. The participants will also move away from conventional mindsets and understand the importance of being an innovator and how this can have a positive impact on the organisation they serve for. Participants will also be encouraged to take the lead within their organisation to initiate design and execute innovative projects within their organisation. Another important learning outcome from the course will be that the participants will not only have a deeper understanding on the insights from leading corporates in innovation, but they will also be taught how to tackle innovation related resistance within organisations. 

With many companies still facing challenges in making headways by embracing innovation, the certificate course on corporate innovation will provide latest and important insights and frameworks with great practical examples around the world to help even Sri Lankan companies adapt to change and become disruptors by embracing innovation and take advantage of emerging markets.

To register for this unique certificate course which will help you understand what tools big layers globally are using to sustain the innovation in their companies, call PwC’s Academy Sri Lanka on +94117719868 or email [email protected].