Corporate Innovation
Innovation Management and Corporate Entrepreneurship
For Corporate Innovators
You are an established company and your products and your business model are well anchored in the market? On the basis of your company’s history and the resulting strengths, you are planning to establish or expand your Corporate Entrepreneurship or Corporate Innovation department? Do you want to develop innovative product ideas or completely new business models in a future-oriented business area from within the company with your team? Do you see product and business model innovation as an important element in your corporate culture and, as a corporate innovator, would you like to further expand this DNA in the field of corporate start-ups? If so, we will be happy to support you and act as your partner.
We are the right partner for the set-up or expansion in the corporate entrepreneurship sector because we have advised several hundred start-ups in our company history and have founded or co-founded several dozen start-ups. For more than 20 years, our work has focused on the foundation and development of start-ups, the optimization and market-driven development of business models, capital acquisition and the consistent alignment and adaptation of all business processes and business structures to the success of the team.
We are convinced that a clear and early orientation of the company and its culture towards innovation will prevail in an increasingly dynamic competitive environment.
Our approach
Step 1 – Idea Generation
Step 2 – Idea Validation
Step 3 – Idea Implementation
Step 4 – Idea Spin-Off
Step 5 – Idea Scaling
Our approach
Step 1
Idea Generation
We bring the world of startups into your company. We organize and / or moderate an open or topic-specific hackathon in which your team develops new ideas with the know-how of the company. If desired, we can also involve our partners (Cologne colleges and universities, HGNC – hochschulgründernetz cologne e.V.) from the scientific or university environment and network the participants with external experts and students from a wide range of disciplines and develop ideas together.
In addition, we can prepare a screening of the startup world for you that is geared to your company interests. We currently have access to more than 1,500 startups in Germany and several hundred startups abroad, from which we can derive suitable investment opportunities for your investment portfolio or use them as a benchmarking pool for your corporate startups.
With Design Thinking, we can use another important building block in innovation management to realize company-specific innovation goals with the appropriate methods and tools. With the right mindset, research, storytelling and prototyping in interdisciplinary teams can help to achieve and advance concrete goals or even to dismantle innovation barriers.
Step 2
Idea Validation
Innovation ideas and new innovation approaches should be tested and validated at a very early stage. This can save you unnecessary development work, costs and inefficient use of resources.
How can we put this into practice? Through a dozen times tested and semi-standardised market test, in which 150-250 qualified feedbacks are generated within a manageable period of two to three weeks for the innovation project. We combine target-oriented landing pages with clearly controlled traffic and the derivation of customer feedback.
In this way, an informative picture can be created very quickly, enabling you to make a meaningful decision for or against the realisation of a particular idea. Otherwise, there is a risk that products or projects will not be developed on the market.
Step 3
Idea Implementation
We support you and your team in further enhancing the developed and fundamentally validated product or project idea to a first reliable MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
This can also involve realizing initial sales, achieving the proof of product and testing different distribution channels and marketing approaches. If possible, jointly defined success factors and KPIs should prove a first strong traction in the market.
Step 4
Idea Spin-Off
As soon as the developed product or project idea is implemented in the market and the first business processes are running successfully, we support you with the “spin-off”. In this way, the new business area can be set up internally or externally.
If necessary, the team is supported by us, complemented by further internal or external employees and developed into a successful start-up. We would be happy to continue to be your partner here as well. We can also acquire external partners and investors – through our resilient network based on 20 years of experience in the market. Of course, we can also help with the preparation of pitch decks and financial plans if required.
Step 5
Idea Scaling
In the next development step, Growth Hacking methods will be used to consistently further develop the young, jointly established corporate start-up and thus strive for truly relevant business growth. The goals of the collaboration are to scale all relevant business areas and to achieve a truly significant market position for the corporate start-up. We are also helping to secure further financing, acquire external partners and continuously adapt the business model and product.
Have we caught your interest?
Then we look forward to hearing from you and to an interesting exchange of ideas.
We sit in Cologne and Berlin
Our headquarters in Cologne:
Thierhoff Consulting
Salierring 32
50677 Cologne
+49 (0)221 / 430 75 68-0
info@thierhoff-consulting.de
Our branch office in Berlin:
Freiheit 12c
12555 Berlin
+49 (0)30 / 120 894 58
We are also happy to meet you at our branch offices in the Rotonda Business Clubs:
- Frankfurt Wiesenhüttenplatz 25 – 60329 Frankfurt
- Domstraße 10 – 20095 Hamburg
- München Luise-Ullrich-Straße 14 – 80636 München
- Königstorgraben 11 – 90402 Nürnberg
- Lautenschlagerstr. 23a – 70173 Stuttgart
- Elisabethstraße 11 – 40217 Düsseldorf