KICKBOX – AN INTRODUCTION
THE BEST INTRAPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM
There are many reasons to implement a proven intrapreneurship program in your company.
First, innovation should not only be in the responsibility of a seperated innovation hub. It effects the whole company. Therefore, everyone needs to be part of the innovation journey. Second, employees need to be trained to get ready for the digitalization. A gamified intrapreneurship program with methods such as 'Lean Startup' and 'HCD' plays a key role in the transformation of employees. Third, you unlock the full potential of your employees. New products, services, business models and valuable cost savings will be identified, validated and implemented by your very own employees.
THE KICKBOX PROGRAM
IT CONSISTS OF THREE KEY ELEMENTS:
ONLINE INNOVATION PLATFORM
Online platform makes innovation measurable, manageable and visible
The modular platform comes with your logo. You can onboard internal experts, manage innovation projects and access services from within and outside the company. Automate and streamline your innovation funnel.
PHYSICAL TOOLBOX
Gamificated toolboxes to enable everyone to get started
Customize your innovation box based on the proven Swisscom Kickbox. Every box comes with an innovation booklet, helpful tips and templates to get from a raw idea to a strong pitch. Distribute boxes to employees with a business idea.
PEER COMMUNITY
Peer-to-peer training and community help to grow the program
Learn from the Swisscom Kickbox Team and meet regularly peers who are responsible for the Kickbox Program in their organisations. This community keeps you at the forefront of innovation and helps you to scale the program.
PHYSICAL TOOLBOX
In a world where everything gets digitized and paper format loses its glamour, we are more convinced than ever before that the physical key-element of the intrapreneurship program plays a major role: the Kickbox toolbox.
The toolbox makes innovation tangible for everyone. The box is filled with useful methods and guidance such as the KICKBOOK and provides a degree of playfulness. Due to the toolboxes a gamificated, decentraliced and to great extent automated validation process can be guaranteed. The innovation pro gram becomes quickly a brand. The brand ensures that people knoe the process an value the success cases resulting from Kickbox.
RedBox
Every employee who got an idea can get started. After having submitted the idea on the platform, the intrapreneur gets the RedBox. The gamificated toolbox provides everything needed to support the Kickboxer on this validation journey: time, money, coaching, access to internal and external experts and service providers. Eventually, the Kickboxer has to convince a sponsor with a presentation to move on to the BlueBox phase.
BlueBox
If the Kickboxer finds an internal sponsor, the BlueBox phase starts. Equipped with CHF 10'000-50'000.- budget, the Kickboxer runs a pilot project with real customers. Besides tools and methods provided in the toolbox, the Kickboxer gets access to coaching sessions, sprint workshops, and many useful innovation modules. Innovation coaches provide support in planning, executing, and evaluating the pilot project.
GoldBox
The handover of a GoldBox is a symbolic act when the pilot has been proven as successful and the decision by the management has been made to implement the project. This is the moment when the Kickboxer has created his own job: The intrapreneur will work full-time for his project. Individual GoldBoxes can range from company-building support, spin-off process or simply a new work contract - tailor-made for the project at hand.
The heart of the RedBox is the KICKBOOK. This 'Manual for Intrapreneurs' guides the Kickboxer on his journey from a raw idea to a validated idea presentable in front of sponsors. The book is based on methods such as 'lean startup' and 'human centered design'. The Swisscom Kickbox team wrote the booked based on their learnings from over 400 Kickbox projects they coached. Additionally, they shared first drafts with their peers. Over 100 feedbacks from other innovation managers, consultans, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs were gathered and taken into consideration. Additionally, several co-creation workshops were organised by the Swisscom team to bring the book to the next level. The book is available for free.
KEY ELEMENT 2:
THE KICKBOX PLATFORM
The toolboxes are complemented by an online platform, which bridges the offline and online world in seamingless way. Innovation can not be achieved alone. Therefore, it is important to find the right experts, sponsors, and service providers in order to bring the ideas to the next level. The developed platform links experts to projects where their skills are needed, motivates more employees to engage in innovation topics, combines people on projects, based on their fields of interest, breaks down existing silos and pushes the intrapreneur into doing. Additionally, the platform enables the program manager to run Kickbox without any overhead and generates a valuable reporting for the top management.
Projects
to get an overview of all Kickbox projects
People
to find experts, team members, and sponsors
Services
to boost your idea with professional services
Admin
to manage the program
and get reportings
KEY ELEMENT 3:
PEER COMMUNITY
You are not alone. The Kickbox program with the mentioned key-elements has been running at Swisscom, the leading telecommunication- and IT-company of Switzerland, with great success. Over 400 projects have been validated, more than 70 pilot projects have been executed, and 12 intrapreneurs reached the GoldBox phase. The program at Swisscom was so successful in terms of business- and transformational impact that the demand from other corporates grew. As a result, the Swisscom Kickbox team opened up the program enabling other organisations in intrapreneurship with Kickbox.
The exchange between these peers is valuable as the challenges and opportunities with Kickbox are quite similar. The peer community shares their learnings, fails, and wins in context of Kickbox through an online connection and physical community gatherings. The physical community gatherings last from co-creation workshops (i.e. about the KICKBOOK), over visits to the production site of the toolboxes (a handicapped workshop), to invites to Kickbox events running at the different companies and organisations.
SELECTION OF KICKBOX CASES
FROM INTRAPRENEURSHIP TO OPEN INNOVATION
Most companies realized that there is a need for innovation. Innovation hubs are built, budget has been allocated, and innovation managers are hired. However, most innovation projects stay within the walls of the organization.
We strongly believe that there is more potential in collaboration across companx boundaries. Projects based collaboration between corporates can be fruitful if the skills an expertise brought to the table are complementary. That is the reason why the software comes with the functionality that the administrator of company X can share chosen projects with any other organization working with GETKICKBOX.COM. If the project is not shared, it is only visible for company X. Furthermore, we currently explore the potential of collaboration with universities such as ETH Zurich, University of St. Gallen or University of Zurich.
CONTACT US!
Dave
Dave is the creative mind and Swisscom Kickbox initiator. He has many years of corporate and startup experience and has founded several times.
Reto
Reto has an HSG Master in Business Innovation and experience as an intrapreneur and founder. At Swisscom he has supervised 300+ projects.
Vinz
Vinz is a designer and has worked on various innovation projects. He supports with prototyping, UI/UX and is responsible for the online platform.
Ralph
Ralph has founded twice and has a background in marketing and BizDev. He pushes the Kickbox Open Innovation ecosystem forward.