Seven Enterprises Leading with Exponential Innovation, Strategy, & Leadership

Amid the unprecedented disruption we’re seeing in nearly every industry, it’s more important than ever for leaders to adopt an exponential mindset that can inform—and transform—their organization’s leadership models, strategy development, and innovation practices. But what might that transformation look like? Here are seven enterprises that came to SU to envision, design, and build the future of their industries, and through a multimedia journey (case studies, videos, and webinars, oh my!), you can get a close look at how they were able to take huge, bold leaps forward.

Bayer: Ensuring better healthcare and nutrition for all

Bayer is seeking to develop new life science solutions based on digital technology, machine learning, sensors, and new business models, as well as define faster, less-costly development, testing, and go-to-market processes and solutions. In 2015, Bayer established its Bayer iHUB lab—embedded at SU—“to innovate, to experiment and to iterate fast on promising discoveries,” according to Dirk Schapeler, iHUB’s VP Digital Innovation US at Bayer.

Airbus: Developing a novel AR and AI education platform

Airbus sent a diverse global team of developers, makers, and leadership development experts to SU to discover how to apply mixed reality technologies like AR and VR to real-world employee training.

Lufthansa: Cultivating a new, more collaborative corporate culture

Lufthansa wanted “to awaken [its] managers to a vision for the future that is vastly different from what we see today,” according to Susanne Berthold-Neumann, Project Leader for ProTeam Traineeship at Lufthansa, who noted that project accomplished its objective—faster than anyone thought possible. “After two days at SU, everything changed for us. We learned to reframe issues in unconventional ways.”

AEP: Launching a new innovation program powering employee-led solutions

American Electric Power (AEP) was looking to up-level its approach to innovation and turned to SU for new tools and frameworks. The result: a new playbook for implementing exponential methodologies and thinking—and a wildly successful employee ideation program to address customer needs.

Lowe’s: Building the future of retail today

Lowe's, the Fortune 50 home improvement retailer, was looking to become a center of excellence for delivering meaningful innovation. The company turned to SU, and an exciting partnership emerged. By embracing exponential thinking and SU’s Science Fiction Design Intelligence methodology, Lowe’s envisioned the future of retail stores and homes, and developed a roadmap to build stores of the future. Those stores are already here, and feature augmented and virtual reality design tools for consumers to imagine, design, and shop for their future homes; the first autonomous retail service robot; and an in-store 3D printer that can build any part that a customer brings in for replacement.

Rotoplas: Making water an abundant resource

Mexico City-based Grupo Rotoplas is the leading provider of individual and integrated water solutions in the Americas. The company identified a big problem—and opportunity—around septic systems and, thanks to a new relationship with SU and SU’s global innovation ecosystem, found the solution it needed in an innovative startup, Sanzfield Technologies.

TEN: Building a network of exponential leaders

The Executive Network (TEN) aimed to be the leading Dutch executive search and recruitment firm and partnered with SU to design a program educating Dutch executives about exponential thinking for global impact.