By: Tobias Rooney, Director ?What If!
We recently hosted a talk by Steve Goodier in our London office. Steve is the head of the unicorn business you may have never heard of, Nexcel. And you’ve never heard of it because it’s not a start-up, but rather a business set up within Castrol InnoVentures, a part of Castrol.
Five years ago, Castrol set off on a journey to exceed the targets set out in their strategic plan by $1bn, by 2020. This big exploration got them thinking beyond oil, beyond the engine, and led to a number of exciting new business opportunities.
Steve’s is Nexcel, a new business capable of disrupting a multitude of different existing business models. This plug and play technology allows for an oil change that is about 30x faster, boasts a huge reduction in waste oil and emissions, and provides a significant improvement in engine performance.
Even more fascinating is the fact that this one guy and his team developed this new start-up within the constructs of a traditional engineering company over the last four years. Nexcel is now available in its first vehicle, Aston Martin Vulcan, and is slated to appear in a number of major automotive companies within just a few years, all with a unicorn-sized valuation of the business.
This is a story nobody tells, about how a large, successful and traditional business has the ability to create and launch a start-up inside its own walls. The press is always telling success stories of start-ups nimbly outmanoeuvring slow moving corporates, of larger-than-life entrepreneurs on a crusade to change the world, of fast, smart and audacious decisions. Yet here, it’s Castrol, an established organization, who is doing exactly that.
So why is this so surprising? After all, any large company has a suite of levers at their fingertips, innumerable advantages that younger, smaller start-ups don’t have. Large companies have deep pockets, a loyal customer base that wants them to explore new and different on their behalf, wide access to expertise and more. And counter to the myth that great entrepreneurs only exist in start-up land, large organizations are rife with untapped entrepreneurial and pioneering talent, like Steve.
Here’s how Castrol was able to outmanoeuvre start-ups:
1. They gave Castrol InnoVentures space. The space to develop their thinking, sufficient budget, and the room to manoeuvre and explore without delivery deadlines in the first two years; with the expectation that they’d break even later in the journey.
2. They used customer and consumer insight to shield the idea from internal barriers. As the concept grew, so too did resistance internally on the grounds that it would seriously upset their workshop customers. Talking directly with customers and consumers helped arm them with a completely different story that positively supported their work.
3. They tapped into the large talent network they had access to, both internally and externally. Castrol InnoVentures is a magnet for new and exciting, and people are galvanised by the interactions.
4. They built a strong and diverse team. Their team resembled the cast of a sitcom with very different characters, making for different and fruitful collaborations.
5. They identified the right leader. Castrol found the right guy for the journey, like Steve — a mix of tenacity, humility, patience, positivity and amazing listening skills.
Castrol had a grand ambition, saw an opportunity and acted on it. Will it succeed? The story has a few acts still to run, but they've proved that competing against the start-up is possible. They acted quickly and decisively, and harnessed their unique advantages and capabilities to give themselves the edge. Large organisations be heartened, inside the ‘dinosaurs’ reside all the talent, skills and insight needed to change their future. We look forward to seeing what new unicorns they create.
To learn more about ?What If! Innovation and how we can help you apply these innovation principles in your large organization, follow us on twitter: @whatifglobal or contact Tobias on Tobias.Rooney@whatifinnovation.com
