Ayala leads efforts to harness innovation

Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest conglomerate, is spearheading efforts to harness innovation and effective collaboration amid what it calls “volatile times.”

The aim is to better understand emerging disruptive forces, and discuss how to thrive in this era of extreme change, said Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman and CEO of Ayala Corp.

Through a Creativity and Innovation Forum (C&I) held last week, Ayala engaged its key partners and friends from outside the group, recognizing that the most impactful innovations emerge from the power of creative combustion—the intersections of diverse cultures, experiences, and capabilities.

“In parallel to the challenge of adapting our organizations against disruption, we are also called to build bridges of synergy between organizations... Collabo- ration between and among different groups is essential in all our efforts to harness innovation and solve the world’s biggest challenges,” Zobel said.

Hitendra Patel, professor at Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto, said disruptions happen very fast.

“You need to move faster than ever before. You need to be able to look into the future and create a picture of what it looks like. In that future world, you’ve got to see what the business impact is with the growth gap and everything else. From there, you’ll find your space to play in. And in that space, you can place teams that can run to make things happen,” Patel said.

Ernest Cu, president and CEO of Globe Telecom, discussed how Globe’s burning platform mentality helped the company anticipate disruptions in telecommunications. This, he said, enabled Globe to pivot from being a pure telecommunications provider, to a digital lifestyle enabler powered by data.

Cesar Romero, president and CEO at Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp, for his part, said Shell’s globally-recognized excellence principles and methodologies in forecasting scenarios, as well as how the company proactively and collaboratively responds to these forecasts.

Ayala said that while disruption exists all around, innovation goes beyond increasing a company’s bottomline—there is a bigger, more meaningful goal as organizations respond to disruption.

As such, Ayala and its partners remain committed to building a Philippine innovation ecosystem to drive the country forward.