Excubation: A New Path to Innovation

Large companies were once the jealous guardians of their own secrets, relying exclusively on their research and development departments to attack markets with innovative products and services. This model worked for a long time, giving them a sustainable competitive advantage. However, since the 2000s, the meteoric rise of tech-backed startups has shaken these industry giants.

The complex structures, rigid hierarchies, and specific resources of large companies often prevent them from competing with small startups, which have the flexibility and freedom to explore new ideas and cutting-edge business models. Faced with this challenge, large companies have attempted to remain competitive by developing internal incubators and investing in promising startups.

However, the failure rate of these internal initiatives is high, mainly due to the difficulty of reintegrating these new ideas within the larger company. This is where excubation comes in. This innovative model involves a large company creating a startup or developing an innovative project by relying on external partners, while maintaining its internal team. The goal is to encourage the emergence of new ideas and business models outside the company, while ensuring that they contribute to its future growth. In contrast to incubation, excubation allows the startup or project to thrive outside the company's walls.

To implement a successful excubation program, large companies must follow seven essential rules established by Excubate:

1. Separating innovation from execution: Excubation involves leveraging the complementary strengths of startups and large corporations by separating the exploration phase from the exploitation phase. Startups offer unparalleled agility and innovation capacity, while large corporations have the strength, experience, and resources to turn those ideas into reality and grow rapidly.
2. Attracting entrepreneurial talent: To successfully create new businesses or develop innovative projects, large companies must attract and retain entrepreneurial talent. This requires offering them a high level of autonomy and responsibility, as well as access to the financial, human, and logistical resources necessary to bring their projects to fruition.
3. Facilitate the innovation process: Clearly defining the innovation process is crucial. Large companies, with their level of organization and structure, must provide startups with all the resources they need.
4. Managing the innovation portfolio: Even if excubation innovation projects are developed externally, the company must respect a limited number of simultaneous projects. It is essential to clearly allocate the budget between innovations developed internally, those developed with partners, and those excubated.
5. Inspire internal employees: To encourage innovation, the company can adopt measures such as job rotation, participation in startup events or temporarily easing certain constraints to promote a more flexible and agile work environment.
6. Educate employees: Once employees are motivated to explore new ideas, the company must educate them by providing them with access to information and resources that will enable them to understand startup practices and adopt new agile methodologies.
7. Supporting the flow of ideas: The goal of excubation is not just to solve short-term business problems, but also to maintain a culture of innovation in the long term.

By following these rules, large companies can embrace excubation as a win-win model, combining the best of both worlds to remain competitive in a constantly changing world.

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