Creating an innovation culture
In part five of our Green Leaders series, we explore how Microsoft and Siemens drive sustainability by fostering a healthy work environment and culture of innovation
In part four of our series, we pointed to how Cisco and Ben & Jerry’s used outside partnerships and collaboration to create some of their greatest ideas.
For part five of our series, we’ll shift our focus inward and take a look at how companies are rethinking their company culture to drive innovation and sustainability initiatives.
We’ll look at two global companies, Microsoft and Siemens, and see how they grow and maintain healthy work environments to foster an internal culture of innovation – a necessity for the food and beverage industry to combat challenges such as reducing material usage, minimising emissions and improving recycling.
Microsoft’s extraordinary philosophy
It may surprise some, but this 45-year-old company is still the dominant player in the global market share of desktop and mobile computer users with a staggering 73% of all computers running Windows Operating system. Its closest competitor, Macintosh from Apple, is at a significantly distant second place with 17%. What’s even more remarkable is that Microsoft’s continued dominance can be traced to one idea: empathy.
When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he pushed to embolden employees to be more creative and emphasised empathy as the means of creative innovation. Empathy, he argued, was a greater driver of collaboration and understanding, which in turn leads to innovation. And it worked.
Microsoft’s emphasis on empathy has led to new and groundbreaking solutions in using Artificial Intelligence to assist people with disabilities. The solutions were created and inspired by Microsoft employees with seeing and hearing disabilities. Seeing AI, Soundscape, Immersive Reader, Eye Control, and live captions for Skype and PowerPoint are just some of the products to emerge from these collaborations.
Siemens open-sourced initiatives
This global powerhouse for well over a century is the largest manufacturing company in Europe, and if Siemens isn’t building it, it’s inventing it. As of 2019, Siemens employees accounted for more than 25% of digitisation related patents – worldwide. To accomplish this, Siemens relies on a culture of collaboration and innovation to fuel the next great invention, even inviting non-employees to participate. The Siemens Innovation Ecosystem is open to anyone and provides an open-sourced digital platform to drive innovative solutions like their ELISA eHighway system.
Running along a 10km stretch of the autobahn near Frankfurt, Germany, the eHighway has just completed one year of testing. Once fully operational, hybrid trucks will be able to charge their batteries via contact strip and overhead cables similar to trains. The trucks remain in motion while emitting no emissions and can continue fully electric once recharged – saving fuel, time and money related to recharging stops. Furthermore, the energy used for charging comes from 100% renewable sources.
An open nature
For the food and beverage industry, the inspirations from these innovative companies are plentiful. Microsoft shows that a simple word can change an entire company’s work culture for the better. Open and collaborative problem solving is something they’ve continued to emphasise, even founding an annual TechFest to give employees an outlet to showcase their research.
Similarly, Siemens’s intense focus on invention and open collaboration exhibit a foresight that solutions may not always come internally. By allowing an open-source approach to solutions, they’ve developed a culture that’s pushing invention forward instead of waiting for it to catch up.
The culture of SIG
Want to know how SIG supports its internal culture and innovation? Similar to Microsoft’s stress on empathy to spark its innovation, our innovation culture comes from our Believe In More initiative. It inspires us to explore unknown paths in the food and beverage industry and lead the way in sustainable solutions that are rooted in customer and consumer demand.
Our efforts made us the first to offer aseptic carton packs using responsibly-sourced aluminium foil certified to the aluminium stewardship initiative (ASI) standard. And the first to eliminate aluminium entirely in our SIGNATURE 100 packaging structures. We also pioneered the use of straws made of paperboard for beverage carton packs. And we still have an ultimate goal to create a pack made entirely from renewable or recycled materials.
Leading in green
In the sixth and final part of our series, we’ll conclude our Green Leaders in business series with a look back at what the food and beverage industry can learn from the companies we’ve discussed. We’ll explore what they can teach us about going green, and which areas to prioritise.
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- tháng 2 23, 2021