IN CORPORATE WORLD, IT’S INNOVATE OR DIE

ter, and will tell you to fix things before they break. You’re going to be able to diagnose things much faster,” he said. “So is this the end of doctors—that 80 percent [of them] would only be needed for things that break?”

Talking about Connectivate, Patel said this trend was “one of the most fundamental drivers of the shared economy”—Uber, AirBnB, Facebook have all made good use of connectivity to build successful companies without owning a single asset.

“How about the end of thinking?” Patel added. “We have arrived at the end of thinking: You get your GPS device, you plug it in, and you tell it where you want to go—and this voice knows exactly how to get you there.”

Finally, under the Robovate trend, Patel recalled a trip to an LG factory in 2006: “That factory was $8 billion, and was the size of a football field. Looking inside, we couldn’t see anything—there were no lights! Why? There were no humans, just robots, and robots don’t need lights. They do things very well without lights.

So we’re coming to a world where factories are going to decrease their number of peo- ple because if it’s inconvenient, labor-intensive, boring, fastidious, a machine will do it—better, faster, and safer.”

Patel listed these four trends in the hope of inspiring new ideas among the Ayala group’s leaders across all functions. The forum also served as the ILP’s kickoff, as these executives will undergo an “innovation journey,” or a set of capability-building activities designed to empower them to develop and manage innovation initiatives using a standard language and process.

The program began with a two-day workshop, wherein participants were awarded GIMI’s Level 1 Innovation Management Certifications. Those gunning for the Level 2 certification will then be assigned, for 14 weeks, to work on projects which could potentially open new businesses for the company.

“They aren’t going to sit in a conference room talking about how things are going to work. They’re going to go out, talk to customers, make prototypes, make brochures. By doing all those things, they’re going to be able to do what they want to do. So we’re going to take them through this 14week journey, and they’re going to hate it. But for the first two weeks they’re going to say, ‘This is awesome! This is easy! Post-Its—yeah!’” said Patel. “When they get to the end, we’re going to identify the three best, and we’re going to celebrate them.”

This celebration, called the Spark Innovation Summit, is set to take place in November, wherein participants will also receive their Level 2 Innovation Management Certifications.

“Innovation doesn’t have a standard textbook. GIMI is making that standard, just like Six Sigma became a standard. We are creating a language and management discipline,” Patel said.

The program, Patel added, also helps the company “connect dots,” or open up opportunities for more people to work together—something essential to innovation.

“The best innovations in history have come at the intersection of multidisciplines. And the next big innovation comes at the intersection of industries,” he said. “If we do this right, [the participants] are going to say, ‘I loved it,’ and they’re going to do it again and again—and they’re going to tell their friends to do it, and it’ll start an innovation wildfire.”