In recent times, there has been an increasing trend in the corporate world towards building corporate innovation labs for collaboration. Almost every big and established company pursues the path of producing new ideas or showcasing how innovative it is. Hewlett Packard, Air Force, Verizon, Target, IBM, PayPal, Google, and Cisco are some of the corporations on the list of corporate innovation labs.

Why corporate innovation labs?

Different companies have different objectives. While the early innovation centers focused on demonstrating the cool stuff a company has developed, these days more and more corporations concentrate on building up value-added products and services, addressing real challenges and deriving benefits for both company and its customers. Here are some of the examples of best corporate innovation labs.

Johnson & Johnson boasts 4 regional innovation centers in the USA, UK, and Asia Pacific. The corporation invests around $ 9 billion a year on research and development. The company is known for collaboration with regional startups and universities. In just three years (from 2014 to 2017) there were 300 deals done with the local actors. Such countries as Japan, China, and Singapore are home to a considerable number of long-living people and because the corporation continues to explore the problem of population aging and the diseases that develop with age Asia Pacific is the company’s most bustling research scene.

Fidelity Labs is perhaps an example of one of the best corporate innovation labs in the world. The family-controlled corporation specializing in retirement plans and mutual funds spends $2.5 billion a year on tech. The company is currently focused on technologies that are in their infancy, such as blockchain, digital currencies, and artificial intelligence. Fidelity employs a staggering 12 thousand technologists – almost one-third of its workforce – to foster innovation. The company runs separate tech incubators, and in case some of their projects fail, the retirement and mutual funds won’t be affected.

PayPal is high on the list of corporate innovation labs for collaboration. This FinTech company has joined forces with the Singapore FinTech ecosystem and drawn government authorities, universities as well as startups and medium-sized businesses. The company gives small companies and students a chance to create innovative products and its incubator has helped to raise over $100 million for 6 FinTech startups.

Barklay’s Accelerator is a partnership between Barclays and Techstars that shares the giants’ knowledge base and various resources with startups to push innovation across the financial services industry. The accelerator’s locations are in New York, London and Tel Aviv – some of the world’s most innovative cities.

Food and beverage companies like PepsiCo and Mondelez also have opened their R&D hubs. Companies are focused on generating product innovations. Just like many other companies across the globe, PepsiCo involves startups to drive innovation and sustainability across their 30 R&D centers around the world.

Of course, the list of corporate innovation labs could be continued. Many of such centers are companies’ drivers for success. Mehmood Khan, the Vice Chairman of PepsiCo and the person responsible for R&D at the company, says, “In the past, discovery was about something that you discovered in your own lab. In today’s world, discovery is about discovering ideas, no matter where they are.” Therefore, by fostering collaboration and innovation, every established company can stay relevant in the ever-evolving world and create valuable products and services.

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