Innovation Exchange calls on businesses to join B2B Marketplace
The Innovation Exchange has issued a call to action to businesses to register themselves on its marketplace before the Christmas holiday period.
A B2B innovation marketplace that connects large firms with small or scaling technology companies to address internal digital transformation objectives, The Innovation Exchange was launched in February of this year and to date has over 200 scaling technology companies engaging with it along with 23 large corporates.
The initiative works by members submitting proposals to specific corporate challenges which are published via The Innovation Exchange platform. The corporate partner and the solutions provider then follow a clear framework which if successful at each stage, results in a deal being done. To date, 18 challenges have been published with 290 submissions received. This has resulted in 40 pitches having been made with 20 moving to the next proof-of-concept phase.
Since its launch, five deals have been concluded with 20 more in the pipeline. Two additional deals, involving multinational companies and indigenous technology start-ups, are expected to be finalised before year end, bringing the total to seven deals done by The Innovation Exchange.
The deals are designed to accelerate digital transformation for large multinational businesses by connecting them with indigenous scale-ups. One of the major benefits of The Innovation Exchange is the fast-tracking of deals. In the most recent collaboration between Exertis (DCC plc) and Digital Workplace, the deal was agreed six weeks from the first pitch.
In 2022, 18 corporate challenges were published, and The Innovation Exchange has said it expects to publish over 25 corporate challenges in 2023. In addition, it has announced an expanded learning platform and new masterclasses focused on leadership, selling, procurement and negotiation. The Innovation Exchange will also host a minimum of four in person networking events in 2023.
Nationwide roll out
In 2023, The Innovation Exchange is expecting to expand its regional outreach structure to ensure that the programme and its marketplace is benefiting Irish technology companies the length and breadth of the country. Galway Technology Centre became the first official regional channel partner in November 2022 and the number of The Innovation Exchange channel partners is expected to reach ten by the end of 2023.
The Innovation Exchange also promotes collaboration between the solutions providers themselves in an effort to promote the idea that a joint approach to challenges can provide the corporate partner with a more complete solution.
Conor Carmody, programme director of The Innovation Exchange said, “We’ve been delighted with the uptake by large corporates and start-up and scaling businesses alike since we launched the programme in February of this year. Our hope is that The Innovation Exchange becomes a mini-hub where we can connect large corporates, be it domestic or Irish-based foreign businesses, and indigenous innovative scaling technology companies and close the gap between these businesses and build long standing relationships, which will ultimately be beneficial to the Irish economy.
As we come to the end of 2022, we wanted to make sure that businesses who may be interested in being part of our innovation marketplace sign up before they take a well-deserved break for the Christmas season and hit the ground running in 2023.”
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