Learn how the CBI is working to support new, successful innovation partnerships between businesses large and small, and how you can get involved.
Why is the CBI launching Big Fish, Little Fish?
Throughout the pandemic, businesses demonstrated incredible ingenuity, rapidly embracing technology and innovation. You can read more about this in the CBI’s Tech Tracker report. Looking to the future, many businesses are prioritising investments into cutting-edge technologies, such as AI and Robotics Process Automation (RPA), to achieve strategic objectives such as growth, increased resilience and increased agility. For many businesses, building strong relationships with other firms will be vital to achieving these strategic objectives.
For many large companies, partnerships with start-ups and scale-ups are an increasingly important part of their innovation strategies. And for start-ups and scale-ups, innovation partnerships and contracts with large companies can be a vital stage in their development.
Members also made clear, however, that these partnerships and relationships are not always easy. Common cultural, legal, financial and technical challenges have hindered some of these partnerships from reaching their full potential and, in some cases have resulted in parties stepping away altogether.
The consequence of this is that the UK could miss out on the next world-leading innovation.
What is Big Fish, Little Fish?
The Big Fish, Little Fish campaign addresses two questions, identified by CBI members, on innovation collaboration between large and small firms:
- What is best practice for managing successful relationships?
- How can firms be assisted in creating new commercial partnerships?
Through 2021 and 2022, Big Fish, Little Fish will address these questions by:
- Convening a series of problem-solving roundtables in order to develop best practice guides based on the insight shared by members and wider stakeholders. Each roundtable and guide will explore a different aspect of collaboration, such as cultural challenges, open innovation, corporate venturing, and mergers and acquisitions
- Building a network of large/ medium-sized firms, and innovative scaling businesses, to enable leaders to more easily identify potential partners to work with.
What does the CBI want to achieve?
The CBI wants to help deliver a competitive, dynamic and future-focused economy in the decade ahead; and innovation will be crucial to achieving this ambition.
A key part of the CBI’s commitment to this will be to provide members with practical guidance, utilising our convening power to bring together the business community and broader stakeholder expertise in order to create solutions that move UK PLC closer to this economic vision.
By working with organisations such as the Knowledge Transfer Network and other programs backed by the government, the CBI will draw on the collective experience and expertise of the wider innovation ecosystem to make an impact.
Whether by augmenting an existing process or by trying something completely new, Big Fish, Little Fish, will bring together ideas, insights and contacts that can help members to achieve their goals.
Delivered in partnership with Kainos
At Kainos, innovation comes first. We reimagine how organisations operate, using the very latest technology and the curiosity, enthusiasm and talent of our incredible people to deliver game-changing results.
If you would like to know more about how you can be a part of this campaign, please get in touch with Nathan Brown.
