Accenture Case
Executive education and roadshows with unicorns
The glamor often associated with startups and successful “unicorns” is directly proportional to the difficulties faced in the initial phase of entrepreneurs. Understanding in depth the nuances and best practices during the life cycle of a startup is essential, especially for executives of large companies, such as Accenture and its customers, who have the challenge of interacting with (and often internalizing) the fast pace of innovation and disruption in their markets. It was with the aim of deepening the knowledge of its executives on trends and best practices in the world of startups and raising the innovation mindset that Accenture created Exceed.Inn- Executive Education for Innovation, a continuing corporate education program, for directors and managers senior consultants. "The main objective of the initiative is to raise the creative skills of the company's leaders so that they can not only incorporate the culture of innovation, but also be replicators in all points of contact with external and internal audiences", says Daniel Miranda, Manager Senior Innovation and Technology at Accenture, who is also at the head of the program.
The game as a way to oxygenate knowledge in different regions of Brazil
Exceed.Inn was launched in 2016 in the Cubo space, in São Paulo, following the most current trends in innovation. The training grid is updated and expanded every quarter, according to new market directions.
"It is truly a learning space where we bring the best practices and cases on organizational culture, new processes, entrepreneurship, Open Innovation, in addition to new technologies, such as Cloud, Design Thinking, Agile culture, Devops, among others", comments Miranda.
To experience the mindset of open innovation, Accenture decided to include a solution to present in practice the maturity phases of a startup. "In 2018, I was already very engaged in Exceed.Inn and they invited me to participate in a pilot session of Startup Mundi alongside the company's main executives who work with innovation to be introduced to the game's methodology and to see if it would be worth including it. in our training grid ", says Daniel. "We held a meeting after this pilot from Startup Mundi to understand whether or not he fit with the program. And everyone found it very interesting. The main feedback we received was that the game deepened the knowledge on the topic. There is a lot of glamor in the term startup. , but in practice there are few who manage to take off and develop. With the game, we were able to understand this scenario and also internalize concepts generating discussion to apply in our daily lives with our customers ", says Daniel. The successful experience helped the participants to understand the main terms, the journey of a startup from the idea to the traction and investment achievement phase. For Daniel, the game helped executives make the connection between the world of startups and the innovation sectors of Accenture clients. Accenture has chosen to officially include the game experience in the executive training grid on Exceed.Inn. The model was to train facilitators to replicate the in-company experience, thus empowering internal teams to carry out these experiences.
"The feedback among top executives has been so positive that now, in addition to applying with directors and senior managers, we are cascading to other levels of management and coordination, and expanding to offices throughout Brazil," says Daniel. This game experience is also being applied in the Innovation Road Show format in company offices, with employees from Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Belo Horizonte (MG) and Recife (PE). Arthur Dias, Innovation Office Ops Latam, one of the new game facilitators in Rio comments: “I am a fan of the game. It is a privilege to be able to facilitate this game at Accenture ”. And the company is already evaluating the possibility of having more game multipliers in other regions.
The New Applied Now
Like this slogan that emphasizes the consultancy's focus, this Accenture case reinforces the company's openness to new methodologies and the relevance of the game experience as an effective method and knowledge generator for all levels, accelerating the engagement of teams with themes such as innovation entrepreneurship and corporate open innovation. Corporations are not only internalizing best practices from startups to create squads and intrapreneurship programs, but are also approaching startups with hackatons, accelerators, business rounds, etc. Often, corporate teams have not yet been exposed to these concepts and practices. Playing Startup Mundi is a very experiential way to raise awareness among teams with this mindset and terminology. As leaders, such as Accenture, permeate this knowledge at other levels, these new parameters and mindset are increasingly anchored in the culture and available to corporations. The game is a tool developed for innovative organizations, whether it is recognized as leading edge consultants with mature innovation programs or companies in different stages of implementation. “We are very proud of the results that our game experience delivers to Accenture and very energized to know that our content has helped the company's leaders to connect with the journey, best practices and mindset of startups”, says Fabiele Nunes, co-founder of Startup Mundi.