ACE and Startse launch innovation program to respond to the crisis

The corporate world has long hit the same key: that of digital transformation. Process automation, industry 4.0 and the cultural changes involved in the context are ubiquitous topics in the discourse of consultancies and executives. Research showed, however, that while the transformation was seen as urgent, few companies felt safe to touch the process. With the covid-19 pandemic – and the consequent quarantine – what functioned as discourse had to show validity in practice. And urgently. "Companies no longer have the right to choose how they do things," says Pedro Englert, president of startse business school. "Power was transferred from the organizations, which had the market controlled, to a reality in which the customer, informed and with alternatives, decides how to buy and consume." In this context, quarantine has been demanding a rapid response from companies – especially in the ability to do business via e-commerce, the most plausible way to make sales in a situation of physical distancing. To support organizations in this transformation, Startse teamed up with innovation company ACE to set up FIX (full innovation experience), an immersion program for board and management of companies. The idea is to make a diagnosis of the most urgent pains of companies and evaluate the degree of maturity of innovation with a focus on high leadership. Englert highlights Magazine Luiza as a company that has successfully transformed its digital transformation. "It is the great case of Brazil, they understood that, with the new technologies, they must deliver as the customer wants – in the physical store, via own e-commerce, through a third party." For Pedro Waengertner, one of ace's founders, the company's adaptations are not just a response to the current crisis. "With the changing habits of the population, what should happen is the permanence of several trends similar to what we live today," he says. "The crisis has come to show who actually innovates, and who doesn't." In addition to working on innovation strategies, FIX must insert a culture of innovation into companies. Therefore, ACE Cortex, ace's innovation consultancy, adapted the agile methodology common to startups for the corporate model. The idea is to focus, at the same time, on people and structure. "It's a semitruth to say that people are the biggest asset in a company," Englert says. "If you have the best people in a structure and culture that don't work, you won't be able to do anything. It's like having a team of superstars with a bad coach."