9.1. The corporate context of CI C

This international group markets both digital products and services (in the broadest sense). Its structure is decentralized, and a very high degree of autonomy is given to different companies within the group, and according to the interviewee, “There are very few synergies at corporate level”. In short, it is a form of what we may describe as a federation of companies, with a central authority (the group) which operates a policy of non-interventionism and allows member companies to flourish. The company that the CI is built upon proves to be one such company. I do not know whether you will react as I did, but on discovering this, I said, here is a group which is at the very least delightful!

Even more delightful, innovation is the international group’s trademark and has significant scope within its history. Innovation is also the corporate reality through which we examine the CI. However, the latter is only little known or unknown for its innovation with the general public, according to the interviewee, but, “The company is relatively open to external proposals”. It appears that this large group does not have a lot of internal R&D and therefore naturally and favorably welcomes any influences external to the company.

For a long time, the group’s strategic choices forced it to focus on the very short term to compensate for a delay, especially in terms of innovative ideas with its major customers. This decision appears to have left very little scope for the development of interactions with new external partners and particularly with startups: “Ultimately there are very few people actually working upstream and upon technologies which may be at odds, or upon aspects which may take two years to come to fruition”. I admit that this discovery was a paradox for me. When we mention start-ups, and in particular the work between large groups and start-ups, invariably, we believe that the short term is the appropriate time period to consider. Is it not the case that large groups seek to accelerate their capacity to swiftly offer new market solutions by relying upon start-up companies? In this particular case, I therefore had to assume that such a strategy does not apply here, in fact, quite the contrary. The time period as we will subsequently see, was not simply mentioned by this CI manager by chance. This period is at the heart of problematizing the issue as to the present position. It will be necessary for the CI manager to manage this period, and we understand the strategic character of starting up the CI upon discovering the next point.

In recent years, the international group has taken the decision to create, within its R&D team, a laboratory which “has a vision to work with lots of suppliers and look at market availability for products and services. Moreover, this laboratory has forms of meeting workdays with local business ecosystems”. It is therefore a matter for the international group to reinvent its R&D, carefully reflecting at external start-up innovation. The launch of the CI within the company (one of the international group entities) is part of this movement. It therefore had a form of strategic opportunism within the emergence of this CI. The political context is envisioned as being favorable as it is appropriate to slightly reinvent the innovation plant for the company itself and thus operate in step with the parent company (the international group).

In what follows, I will have the opportunity to return to the complementarity between the CI and the R&D laboratory, the latter setting itself up as a necessary and strong ally. Having said that, it would be insufficient to exonerate the CI and its manager, involving quasi-permanent substantive interactions to reach CI objectives. Table 9.1 summarizes the characteristics of the corporate context in which CI C is developing. As with all of our case studies, bear in mind that we are considering interviewee perception and only the primary elements of a far larger context, which I will share as we explore each case.

9.2. CI C players

My exchanges with the CI C manager enabled me to assess the diversity of players involved or affected by CI C: “Now there is a small core of individuals operating within the incubator”. If I did not directly obtain information on the exact composition of this small core group, afterwards, I was able to realize that it was genuinely a very small one (two or three people depending upon the given periods). This appears to be a constant: in digital terms, CIs still appear to have a lack of HR resources, almost becoming confused with their start-up “guests”: “There are dedicated R&D teams upstream. Going beyond that, those involved come from different group entities depending on the opportunity with the given start-up […] these may involve people from marketing or sales”. The transverse character of the CI, if this still needs to be stressed, is even present and must rely upon a multitude of other skills and expertise to operate. This is a point which I will return to during our conclusions, but already I cannot stop myself from confiding in you that this assumes, for direct structural players, that the CI has an aptitude to juggle a multitude of knowledge. It is not a matter of CI teams being specialists in all the fields, but being in-depth generalists, able to quickly approach new knowledge to create useful links both with each entity and as between entities. It appears that it is almost a prerequisite for anyone who wishes to enter into corporate incubation, and the numerous CI case studies observed have only served to strengthen this suggestion.

The CI C manager told us that the R&D department generally had a short-term approach to business. So as to remedy this situation, CI C created a specific laboratory, within R&D, the mission of which is to “… extend visibility over time, to anticipate developmental opportunities eighteen months to two years ahead of time”. The interactions with this laboratory appear to be fluid and natural. The CI was created a year after the establishment of the laboratory. At this point, the CI manager says, “We are well integrated and we are working with them on potentially two-year projects”. This is an alignment which definitely leaves me believing that this CI is an armed component for this laboratory with a fresh appreciation of the sphere. It is somewhat as if the CI had been positioned by the organization as an intermediary, a link, between the pure engineers in this new R&D laboratory, and the marketing and sales teams. The goal here is indeed to sell.

However, the interactions with the marketing teams appear to be more complicated. The timescale is, according to the interviewee, the cause of the difficulties encountered within the management of relationships with these teams, a non-existent issue with the R&D laboratory. According to the CI C manager, there is an interfacing issue with marketing teams, which are not very proactive and do not at all fall within a rationale of forward-thinking (how and what to sell tomorrow?): “In the report to marketing teams, it would indeed be great, to a degree, that they take a leading position around defining anywhere between twelve to eighteen months of technologies which are of interest to them! They are very much positioned ‘downstream’ and it is necessary to involve them more ‘upstream’ in the manufacturing process. Presently there is not yet sufficient connection because they have a cultural issue.” I confess having said to myself on listening to this CI manager that I understood the marketing attitude, the mission of which is to generate short-term business. When you are the boss of a business unit, you are asked month to month to ensure value generation; therefore, it seemed quite natural to admit that these marketing people were ultimately not really wrong. How can you have your nose to the ground, while also having an eighteen-month perspective? Moreover, the relationships with start-ups are in principal synonymous with the capacity for the large group to speed up its time to market, that is to say, the time between the conception of products and services and their appearance on the market. Don’t start-ups themselves act as fast innovation vehicles? The difficulties of this CI appear to be fairly natural and in any case easily understood as the start-up alliance/internal business units for the company are as secure as possible if located within the same time period.

However, this observation that the CI positions the relationship with start-ups within an average/long-term dimension, and appears to consider that it is being out of phase with business units that is of concern, is not in itself accurate. To all of those, including me originally, who may have believed that it is this specific timescale within the case of CI C which is the cause of the difficulties stated above, I allow them to see the various other cases in this work for themselves. In fact, the theory as to a specific timescale is not the case.

Managerial work appears to be justified whatever the case (whether or not the timescale is a relevant consideration). Consequently, we speak of upsetting the means of manufacturing innovation. It is like a syndrome for internal players to agree to the introduction of foreign bodies (start-ups) within their world. Consequently, we no longer speak of customer–suppliers, but instead of partnerships with those smaller and more fragile than we are. I say “with those smaller and more fragile than we are” because if partnerships between large groups are far from being simple, they do not highlight the types of work for these things to succeed. These partnerships are often strategic and managed by decision makers led by comex (the executive committee) or to meet comex requests. In the case of partnership relationships with start-ups, we may almost ask if difficulties with internal players are not linked to the refusal to admit weaknesses, when faced with the most fragile and smallest of entities (start-ups). I speak of admission of weaknesses as for a large group having to rely upon the most fragile and small entity might be perceived as a weakness in its capacity to innovate alone. I believe that the answer to this thorny issue lies only with psychologists.

Without going more deeply into this psychological aspect, a further interpretation of the difficulty, I think, resides within what is colloquially described as mindset, that is to say, how we think. According to the works by Saras Sarasvathy¹ it appears that the mentality of a start-up, without being orthogonal to that of an employee of a large group, is no less different in nature. Some (start-ups) have a tendency to not undertake planning but rather to consider their given resources when operating. Others (employees in large groups) have a tendency to plan (even in the short term) from precise objectives and have all of the infrastructures and means of the large group. Consequently, it may appear difficult to create a dialogue of these two types of players, whatever the implementation timescale that the CI will devote itself to.

Either way, it appears that the ambition of the CI C manager to change the state of mind of marketing teams with a view to aligning them with his ambition is to make them reason in the medium/long term while working with the start-ups. The interviewee remains confident as to the capacity to connect or interface with the incubator, the R&D team and its laboratory, as well as the group marketing teams, “People working in ‘products’ have their own innovation activity in their respective part […] and find it difficult to work with others. That has to change […] to align everyone’s interests and have a greater connection between the incubator, R&D team and marketing.” This position translates the willingness to redefine relationships with internal players and practices to better innovate together.

As a reaction to the issue mentioned by the CI C manager, the issue of involvement and mobilization of useful resources connected to the CI’s proper functioning appears to emerge, “… however all of this rests solely upon personal networks, people involved without there being anything systematic”. This is to say that to date, there is nothing which amounts to genuine managerial work being implemented according to our interviewee. Bear in mind that he arrived after the creation of CI C.

The dimension of the CI manager’s skills, and more globally his capacity for analyzing internal configurations and relationships with external organizations, appears to have great resonance. We have already encountered this point in the other case studies in this work. The CI manager is not simply in charge of a structure, but carries the structure and in a way embodies it. More than for all other structural forms, it is what it will do and what it will not do which enables things to happen and come to fruition. This clearly refers to the profile to conclude this type of mission, although this theme is not our primary concern in the present work. It is a backdrop that I skim over as the subject of managerial work is my focal point within this analysis. However, I will not deny myself the opportunity of broaching the subject of the CI’s players’ profile during my conclusions later.

In any case, in the case study which is our concern at the moment, we can say that the elements above are taking part in problematizing this given situation – a short-term position for marketing teams – and suggest three types of work to carry out. Firstly, it is a matter of developing the innovation production standard as regards the marketing teams and re-orientating their position in the medium and long term. The second type of work to be completed concerns the creation of a common identity by, in particular, highlighting incubator activity. This work around constructing a common identity is supplementary to that of targeting the development of innovation production standards. The third type of work to conduct, which is a corollary to that of creating a common identity, concerns the construction of a network of internal and external informal allies. These are all types of work which aim to respond to the problematization that concerns us, for which understanding the first stage is essential for the mission to succeed.

9.3. The structure of CI C

CI C is attached to an operational unit. This point appears important to us to the extent that it anchors the operations and missions of CI C within business development on an equal footing. This anchorage within business development is susceptible to facilitating the capacity of CI C, concerning and engaging various teams around joint projects. However, the CI manager further acknowledges seeking the right way to guarantee and assume his role, “The rationale of the organization is fairly complicated […] there is a lot of opportunism and we must endlessly chase after resources, means and organizational methods! […] Now quite rightly, we are working on how best to organize our relationships with support functions, with the R&D section …” This assertion (within field publications known as a “hard fact”) reveals a form of learning by doing assumed by the CI manager and established as an operational mode (standard). This aspect concerns all company structures, which so as to exist must be both known and acknowledged. CI C does not escape this rule and must continuously work to improve its relationships with its marketing and sales teams.

We can wonder for a while about this so-called “organizational disorder”, which is not unique to this particular large group. Is it a question for large groups to encourage the emergence of multiple initiatives, in saying that among them, some will enable us to guarantee the business of tomorrow? On the contrary, is it a matter of procrastination linked to the lack of a clear strategic direction? In respect to these questions, which are moreover linked, I have no pre-prepared answers. However, it seems to me that beliefs in recent years have been strongly shaken by the advent of innovative digital technologies. Boundaries between sectors of activity have collapsed, leaving all large group citadels open not only to traditional forms of attack from competitors but also to attacks from those with whom they were allied the day before. I very much wish to point out, by way of example, that there was a time when bankers provided banking and mobile operators provided mobile services. I do not believe it will have escaped anyone’s attention that nowadays bankers may provide mobile services and many mobile service operators have themselves become banks. In short, the economy reasons in terms of business ecosystems having numerous players or such possible players at any given time. It is the era of permanent “coopetition” (cooperation + competition). There are no longer blue and red oceans, but uniquely red oceans, or in any case, they all take on such a form. In addition, it is not surprising that the certainties of organizations have also collapsed, leading at the same time to a willingness to allow for diverse and varied initiatives to be tried. “May the best initiative win” … A further explanation for the emergence of multiple initiatives may also be found in the willingness of large groups and their leaders to wish to reassure people as to the solidity of their company by using the communication lever. Allowing for a multitude of initiatives to be tried is the opportunity to be able to abundantly communicate and to prove to be a modern company. As a transition phase for those for whom the company permits to talk, this comes back to ego cultivation and therefore their career within the company or elsewhere. What top manager would complain about listening to this employee who proposes a new and communicable idea?

Communication, in any case, appears, for this CI, to play a significant role in the promotion of the incubation structure, to the extent that this manager will almost demand it more. According to the CI C manager, “We communicate a lot on the subject of the CI […] but not nearly enough! Moreover, thought was given to this point and the group has decided to communicate more on innovation and the CI’s activities”. In this context, institutional communication can aim to convey a positive image of the group to the general public, to stress its commercial purpose and the dynamics of organizational transformation which it is part of. The CI leads the quest for this transformation. It is an undeniable advantage, as institutional communication also has an internal impact. Indirectly, it underlines the role of CI C and enables the latter to move its transformation dynamics forward: to interest, recruit, mobilize, in a word actively involve all players and, in particular sales and marketing teams, then becomes simpler.

As regards the structure of the CI, the preceding point is important as it is clearly in the process of construction, as are its means of operation, and should bring about its development. In the opinion of the CI C manager: “Priorities which are more strategic than organizational ensure that activity with start-ups will even increase.” Communication is therefore a precious lever, although it does not answer the question: “Yes, but on a daily basis, how can we practically transform the relationship between business units/start-ups within value-creating dynamics?”

9.4. Tasks and missions of CI C

The management of the group clearly wished to make CI C a structure, serving the ends of value creation. The incubator manager can thus use executive speeches to argue in favor of the incubator. The incubator is a structure which is intended to be consistent with the group’s strategic objectives and which must in particular contribute to detecting and developing new “monetizable” innovative solutions for the various group customers. So as to fulfill this objective and serve the group’s strategic interests, the CI C manager cannot depend upon any “formula”, and everything is yet to be invented. Within this context, managerial work produced by the latter rests in large part on a form of improvisation and permanent trial and error through which it “enacts” its environment. This notion of enaction² which I mention here deserves some explanation that the reader can find in the reference at the bottom of the page. The knowledge produced by the CI C manager emerges from a permanent interpretation which results from its capacities for understanding, themselves rooted within the history of its relationship to the corporate environment. To put it another way, the actions that we take at a given moment, T, and even how we manage them are intimately linked to the events before moment T and how we have experienced them. At moment T we are but the result of our past and our present.

It should be noted that for consistency with his external environment, the CI C manager has implemented specific practices, aiming to involve connected players and resources. The approach led by the CI C manager to mobilize business unit resources can be summarized in three points. It is a question of commencing “thematic seasons” for incubation which enable us to share and validate the choice of priorities upstream. It next involves the members of management (decision makers) affected in the choice of start-ups upstream by strengthening the presence of B2B customers. Lastly, it is a matter once the set of themes for a given “validated season” and the choice of start-ups have been achieved, of mobilizing the same set of competences with the given start-ups, and specifically the players in the R&D and marketing and sales teams.

This tactic, which was implemented during the second season of the incubator, appears – from the incubator manager’s admission – to have found a favorable and satisfying impression with the various stakeholders. This assumes during the transition that the approach was different during the first CI season. I mention in this regard that the CI manager was appointed after the latter started. This enabled me to again become aware that the initiatives of the CI manager are not by chance but indeed an observation which sought to understand the position, and thus take action as a result. There is indeed a method in this approach to learning by doing that should not be confused with improvisation. Improvisation comes back to testing to understand. Here, there was a statement and a decision, both developed with a favorable response. This falls within the adaptation of processes to fall into line with a given environment.

From the analysis of the past and the past context, a new approach springs up for the “second season” which has found a favorable response. This new tactic is that of the so-called “thematic season”.

This approach brings us back to the capacity for CI C’s adaptation which we have already mentioned. It marks an adaptation of the CI C operating mode to “cling to” the concerns of various players (marketing, sales and R&D teams) in the group’s sphere. Among these concerns, we in particular find the capacity to quickly identify start-ups which have a given significance and with which internal teams wish to collaborate, taking a proactive approach. Through this adaptation, it is mainly to assist internal teams to better anticipate the resources which they will need to support the dynamics of corporate innovation. The approach enables us to consider problematizing the timescale issue previously mentioned, that is to say, the time horizon into which the various players fall. We may also consider this approach as a means of recruitment and to involve external players (like the customers of marketing and sales teams) by making these players “witnesses” of CI C’s activity and in doing so strengthen its internal legitimacy, through the participation of group representatives within start-up selection committees. This internal–CI–external approach clearly configures the CI’s field of activity as the bearer and contributor of innovative solutions, and as part of an innovative operating mode.

These adaptations fall within the learning by doing process in developing innovation production standards. Developing these standards refers to a change in the state of mind which foreshadows other modes of internal resource management. Moving from a customer–supplier model to a more collaborative and inclusive model with start-ups appears to be a leitmotif for the CI C manager. As the CI manager himself remarked, “We try to work more within a spirit of collaboration than a customer–supplier rationale […] this is what is new for the company. That is to say, considering this perspective amounts to a “win-win” approach!”

Creating spin-offs appears to be a further mission that the CI wishes to focus upon in the near future. However, the CI manager believes, “… Firstly we must be able to gather ideas internally, to develop them […] in brief know how to sell them, to then consider expansion and spin offs!” In short, this will be a further challenge for the future.

There is a twofold challenge within the changes relating to producing innovation today and in the future. On the one hand, you have to consider the mobilization of connected resources, and on the other hand, the group’s innovation production model, and in respect of whether products are focused upon by internal or external players.

According to the CI manager, “I think that the simplest part, in terms of practices, is the sourcing of start-ups. Let us simply say that it is the clearest aspect. We know what we have to do when we prepare a call for proposals or a so-called ‘call’! Next, the downstream section involves succeeding in introducing all of these innovative solution concepts internally to make sure that they are adopted within the group […] this is the most complicated part! … finding the path to the market that assumes that you succeed in convincing a given number of people and also succeed in genuinely implementing this. It is there that you really come back to the ‘hard’ aspect because implementation can be complicated. Marketing the solution for a start-up is not simple.”

Managerial work which aims to crystallize the CI within the group’s given field is essential. Despite the dynamics of the company’s historic openness, the interactions with the CI do not, however, appear to take on an industrialized form. Although there are already, as we have seen, difficulties upstream, such as the involvement of internal players, other difficulties emerge downstream. It is a matter, according to the interviewee, of the stages of “integration” and “marketing”. “Integration” involves interfacing the solution developed by a start-up with the group’s various information systems, and “marketing”, in particular, entails inventing a profitable business model for the company.

Let us pause for a moment on the two downstream difficulties indicated. What is appropriate to understand is that start-ups succeed with so-called innovative solutions (ISs). It is therefore often difficult to wish to apply traditional integration approaches or traditional business models to these solutions. Beyond discussions and other negotiations between start-ups and large groups, questions legitimately arise relating to how to integrate these innovations within the ISs and also how to generate value on the basis of traditional business models. Even in the case of those within marketing or R&D teams, translating an alliance between a start-up and a large group into the real world (marketing) can prove a difficult matter. To say that it is difficult is not to say that it is impossible; this assumes an anticipation from the initial discussions with the start-up.

In addition, the managerial work suggests taking account of player behavior and the interactions between the latter within various phases of the same process targeting the alliance between the start-up and the large group. The managerial work of the CI, the champion of start-ups, must therefore reason within anticipation and running its course, knowing in advance that it is appropriate to provide responses that are adapted to each occasion. It could even be said that the pathway has no shortage of pitfalls and that it will be appropriate not to lose the view of the objective. The CI almost takes on the feature of a company vehicle, which must take onboard external facets (start-up) and internal facets (R&D and marketing), to bring everything to a safe and successful conclusion, that is to say, until the given IS has been integrated within the company.

9.5. The tools of CI C

During the numerous exchanges that I had with the CI C manager, the latter never mentioned the use of specific tools. It was through the analysis of secondary data that I learned of CI C’s use of tools, such as a website and a Twitter account. For some, these tools are not at all expensive and are moreover flexible, and so these tools appear the preferred tools for CIs and therefore do not any longer appear to demand a mention. These tools are traditional tools that can be used to easily make the CI known to the target (i.e. start-ups) and in addition internally. Moreover, we must stress that if these tools have become traditional at this point, this is also linked to their facility to be picked up and used very easily. There was a time when one could speak of exchanging ideas as simply as a telephone call. Nowadays, exchanges are as simple as a tweet, and in addition which reach a multitude of people at the same time. The significance is therefore evident for everyone.

9.6. Summary of CI C

CI C is evolving within a context which, through the history of the company and the international group, is culturally open to external factors. It is this supplier–customer model that was initially applied to start-ups.

There is a need to anticipate the company road maps which, as we have seen, have led to the creation of a dedicated laboratory. The CI was created to ensure mediation between this laboratory and the marketing team, the vision of which is short term. It is a paradigm shift within innovation manufacture understood to fall within a partnership rationale with start-ups to better anticipate products and services in favor of road map marketing. Despite the cultural openness of the company, the development of the CI and the implementation of this new model of relationships with start-ups induce significant managerial work, thus facilitating the adoption of the CI.

The change in understanding relationships with start-ups calls upon various types of work. We have in particular identified work of a political nature which aims to argue in favor of CI C by relying upon the economic context and the willingness of top management to change things with regard to innovation. Moreover, the CI C manager seeks to change the means of approach to innovation production (the existing standards) and construct networks based upon a common identity: “start-up relationships”. If we stay focused on the analysis of the aims of the manager of this CI, these two types of work are the direct consequence of a further problem identified by CI C: the time horizon of marketing actions. However, I believe that these two work types find their sources within the difficulties inherent in the relationships between size structures and different mindsets. As I have underlined, CIs providing a short-term timescale, such as business units of associated companies, encounter the same types of difficulties and implement identical work types. We therefore cannot consider the difference between the medium- and long-term CI timescales and the short-term timescales for the business market considered to be the primary reason, whatever the CI C manager thinks about it. Although understanding the reason is, strictly speaking, not the subject of this work (we are concentrating on how to adopt the CI and not specifically why the CI encounters any difficulty in terms of adoption), it appears useful to take advantage of this case to take the reader back to the previously mentioned works by Saras Sarasvathy.

Within this case, the manipulation by CI C’s management of the operational mode enables the adaptation of the incubation structure. This is reflected in practice, for example, by presenting the given start-up selections or even more broadly by implementing events, opportunities for exchange between internal players and customers so as to together envisage how start-ups might be supported. These events enable us to define the scope of the field of CI activities and reflect its capacity to translate action into reality. Within field publications, such events are labeled FCEs³ (field configuration events).

Today, CI C – as with other CIs studied in this work – can post practical results without being able to measure them. We will note at this point that the players questioned exhibit a certain caution and willingly admit further reflection for the construction of performance criteria that is consistent with this performance on the basis of criteria previously defined. In the opinion of the CI C manager, “Overall, I think that CI activity has a positive return on the group’s image. We may speak of our return on culture or our return on communication. […] We undertake bizdev – business development – and it is already clearly a positive point when we communicate with our customer groups at public events”.

The non-observability of results is a point on which the CI C manager remains vague – as do a multitude of his counterparts. However, we do not detect particular concern on the part of this CI manager, “I do not think that nowadays we can measure or claim that there is an overall effect on group sales volume. I believe that we have contributed to improving relationships between the various players […] it is completely intangible and cannot be measured by group performances. When we effectively have products which integrate technological issues from the CI […] we will then start to seek to assess. However, for now we are a long way from there.”

However, it seems to us that it is better to not settle into getting involved in this non-concern. The CI, as with all new and topical structures, can effectively survive for a time without wondering about its measurement indicators. It guarantees that the operation continues by bearing witness to the modernity of processes underway within the company. However, on a long-term basis, without measurement indicators, we believe that it is likely that the CI’s sustainability is at stake. Communication objectives all have their time. Being a communication objective is not an end in itself for the CI when it is at risk of disappearing. In this work, I will propose indicators which are simple and capable of reflecting the activity of a CI. In my view, this will be a means to integrate and sustain the CI over time.

Trust therefore seems to be needed, so that a certain “normality” is associated with the CI approach. The CI structures are managed by professionals. As those who have looked into the various case studies of this work will have noted, the people responsible for managing such structures themselves have solid professional backgrounds. It is these solid backgrounds that enable them to understand the situation by problematizing from the beginning to then perform their day-to-day mission. By “normality”, I mean that these same managers must equip themselves with indicators for substantial acknowledgment within large groups, so that they may realize their mission. I will return in-depth to this point in the conclusion of this work.