Market Gravity, a company specialized in innovation and design consultancy, held its 6th annual Corporate Entrepreneur Awards in 2015. Dan Taylor, managing director of North America at Market Gravity, talked to us about the event and its outcome.
Dan Taylor: We had a fantastic night at the Corporate Entrepreneur Awards hosted by Market Gravity, with well over 200 business leaders and innovators gathered together at 7 World Trade Centre in New York to celebrate the best of big business innovation and entrepreneurship. It was a fun evening with a pair of great presentations from Rita J. King and Andy Stefanovich, but the main focus was on the awards themselves for which there was some real excitement – we had over 95 nominations from some great brands such as Diageo, Lowe’s, MasterCard, Starwood and Virgin – and I think some genuine surprise around all of the great innovations that these big companies are launching.
The sheer diversity of the entries and the winners shows how innovation is a hot topic across all industries right now - but it’s far more difficult to deliver innovation in a corporate environment than that of a start-up as, on top of the usual challenges of launching a new business, you have to deal with the bureaucracy, process, politics, and sense of expectation that is inherent in every big business. That’s why these awards are significant, and why Market Gravity is so sought-after in providing a much needed service to help these big organizations to identify, develop and launch new products and services.
The awards recognize the new products, services and experiences disrupting traditional industries as well as the unsung heroes and teams spearheading these innovation efforts and there were some deserved winners from the strong field of 95 nominations:
Best New Product – Fingerprint Identification – Alaska Airlines. Fingerprint Identification enables customers to prove their identity without the need for paper boarding passes, or identification documents - allowing them to speed through the airport
Best New Service – Stage & Pay Money Transfer – Western Union. Stage and Pay Money Transfer is rolling-out to every Walgreens in the US. The service utilizes existing in-store photo kiosks and technology, and does not require additional staff.
Best New Venture – Telehealth Innovation – Xerox. HealthSpot is a telemedicine platform, accessed via kiosk, that addresses existing challenges to telehealth delivery, such as: interoperability, clinical workflow, reimbursement, security & privacy, and physician adoption.
Social Impact – Esquire Mentoring Initiative – Esquire Magazine. The Esquire Mentoring Initiative provides mentoring to boys and young men through the influence of celebrities, politicians, business and regular people. In less than a year, c.1M people have been involved with the program
Best Innovation Program (Joint Winners) – Adobe Kickbox – Adobe. Kickbox directly empowers the corporate entrepreneur through a suite of tools & training to help Adobe employees conceive, design, and develop new ideas.
Best Innovation Program (Joint Winners) – One Pearson Global Product Lifecycle – Pearson. The Global Product Lifecycle initiative aims to create “One Pearson” through consistent product development processes and lifecycle management. Pearson has moved from pilot to roll-out, training 34 coaches and 1k employees to-date.
The People’s Choice Award (Joint Winners) – NBC News – NewsConnect. NBC NewsConnect is a platform to consolidate, organize and distribute information about a news story by capturing information from a myriad of sources (e.g. feeds, social media, journalists, legal departments etc.) Users following the story can then share breaking developments with the general public.
The People’s Choice Award (Joint Winners) – The City Football Group – New York City Football Club. The City Football Group leveraged their global football franchises from England, Australia and Japan to create a new local community club – New York City FC. New Yorkers have embraced the club, making it one of the most supported club in the MLS. Playing in the iconic Yankee Stadium and recruiting some of Europe’s top talent, the club has a become a leading light in the NYC sports scene.
A massive well done to the winners, and to all of the teams who entered their products – it’s heartening to see such a range of great innovations from these businesses and we look forward to the 2016 Awards!
