Senior Innovation Manager, IDH
IDH demo-ed their Innovation Platform on each day, with a focus on Developing Service Coalitions and Gender Business Model Transformation. In terms of Service Coalitions the benefits were clear, especially where there is complementarity and synergy, however the development of a coalition takes time and upfront investment is needed (Donors take note!). This development phase must ensure the right partners are selected and this process is often under-estimated, with stumbling blocks often being around data sharing and other intellectual property issues.
The Innovation Library... creates a platform where users are able to navigate to certain innovations based on their objectives.
Service coalitions are a way for different value chain enterprises to work in a complementary way. However it is essential that the enterprises in a coalition provide complementary services as too much overlap will lead to competition. Even where there may appear to be strong complementarity there are often nuances e.g. input retailers may have preferences for selling non-organic products whereas offtakers may have a preference for organic products. This means that coalition developers must be strategic on partnership selection.
It was also noted that coordination takes time, pulling people away from day to day jobs. Grant funding in the early phase of coalition development can play a powerful role. This funding can enable an additional person to be hired, at least until participants see value in the coalition and ready to co-finance the running of the coalition.
It was also noted that co-dependency may increase as part of coalition development. The need for strategic choices in coalition partners were again emphasised as well as the need to ensure upfront agreement on data sharing costs of being part of coalition.
Day 1
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