Strategic Innovation Labs

Real consumer insight does not sit in market reports. It lives in everyday behaviour. I have always believed that if you want to understand the Indian consumer, you must walk the aisles, visit the kirana stores, and spend time in homes. The questions are simple: why did they choose this brand, what made them switch, what are their latest unsatisfied needs, what habit stopped them from trying something new. The answers are rarely written down. They are observed in the pauses, the hesitations, the way a hand reaches for one pack over another. India is a mosaic of markets. What sells in Chennai might fail in Chandigarh. A message that resonates in Delhi could fall flat in a tier-three town. Income, culture, and even climate shape choices. Unless you immerse yourself in these realities, your strategy risks being built on assumptions. The sharper your consumer insight, the stronger your competitive edge. Do not delegate consumer understanding to agencies or reports. Make it a personal discipline. Sit with retailers, shadow buyers, watch the trade. The real breakthroughs are found not in a meeting agenda, but in how people actually live, shop, and decide. #leadership #entrepreneurship #consumer #mindset

Impact Radar for Environmental Sustainability 🌎 The Emerging Tech Impact Radar for Environmental Sustainability identifies 29 emerging technologies and trends that are shaping the future of sustainable business practices. As environmental concerns become more central to business strategy, these innovations are critical for meeting growing expectations around sustainability while driving business resilience. Energy-related technologies are a key focus, with advancements in areas such as energy harvesting, microgrids, and battery storage supporting the global shift to renewable energy and improved efficiency. These technologies are essential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing energy resilience. Sustainable business practices are being transformed by innovations like cloud sustainability, environmental sensors, and sustainable software. These technologies enable businesses to operate more efficiently, reduce waste, and embed sustainability into their core operations. The radar also highlights technologies addressing climate challenges, such as carbon capture and climate risk analytics. These tools are vital for reducing emissions and managing the risks associated with climate change, helping businesses meet ambitious net-zero targets. The shift towards a circular economy is supported by technologies like life cycle assessments and materials informatics, which promote resource efficiency and waste reduction. These innovations are driving the transition from linear production models to more sustainable, regenerative practices. In agriculture and biodiversity, emerging technologies such as drone-based monitoring and blockchain for traceability are enhancing resource management and sustainable sourcing. These innovations are critical for preserving ecosystems and ensuring transparency in supply chains. Understanding the emerging technologies outlined in the Emerging Tech Impact Radar is crucial for businesses aiming to align with sustainability goals and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market. However, it is important to recognize that technology alone cannot solve all sustainability challenges. Businesses must combine these tools with strategic, systemic changes in operations, governance, and stakeholder engagement to create lasting, meaningful impact. What other technologies do you think should be part of this radar? Share your thoughts in the comments. Source: On the Path to Sustainability / The Insurance Industry’s Footprint #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #climateaction #tech #technology

Real Madrid Breaks Ground, Physically and Metaphorically, with Innovation District 🏗️ Real Madrid C.F. has unveiled plans for the Madrid Innovation District (MID), a tech-forward urban hub that will transform 850,000m² of club-owned land into a collaborative ecosystem for global companies, researchers, and entrepreneurs. 👉 Located in Valdebebas, just minutes from Madrid’s airport and IFEMA convention centre, the district will bring together tech giants, startups, and academic institutions in one integrated space. 👉 The club will contribute land, brand equity, and institutional backing, making this a flagship example of sport driving urban transformation. 👉 The aim is to make Madrid “the great technological capital of southern Europe,” according to club president Florentino Pérez. 👉 The space is designed for people to live, work, and play with sport and technology intersecting to create next-gen experiences for fans, athletes, and citizens alike. Why It Matters 🤔 This is about building infrastructure that allows Real Madrid to operate more like a venture studio than a buyer of off-the-shelf tech. By anchoring the MID with its own assets, Real Madrid is creating a platform to develop and scale proprietary solutions and then monetise them across the industry. We’ve seen this model work already in the States. The Miami HEAT spun out their internal data platform into 601 Analytics, now used by multiple NBA teams and venues. Owning the IP unlocked entirely new commercial pathways. Expect more rightsholders to follow suit...

AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly and Company launch digital health and AI innovation hubs in the Philippines and India >> 🇵🇭AstraZeneca will launch a Health Innovation Hub in the Philippines to attract investment and position the country as an ASEAN center for pharma, R&D, and digital health 🇵🇭 Its first project, an Oncology Innovation Center, will use AI for early cancer detection, expand patient support, and build healthcare workforce capacity 🇵🇭 The hub will drive collaboration and investment through business forums, B2B match-making, and regulatory support within ecozones 🇮🇳Eli Lilly has opened a Technology and Innovation Centre in Hyderabad’s Hitech City, set to expand from 100 staff to 1,500 by 2026–27, serving as a global hub for digital and technology capabilities 🇮🇳 The centre will focus on AI, automation, cloud, and software engineering, acting as a nerve centre linking Lilly’s global sites and accelerating medicine discovery and delivery 🇮🇳 Positioned as a centre of innovation rather than back-office support, it will bring together top talent in AI, data science, and engineering to drive digital transformation in pharma 💬 It’s great to see pharma innovation expanding across south and south east Asia, let’s hope the fruits are transformative vs just incremental #digitalhealth #ai #pharma

Gujarat’s Budget 2026–27 marks a decisive shift from an industry-led economy to a knowledge-driven innovation powerhouse. The announcement of 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢-𝐇𝐮𝐛 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐞𝐡𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐚, 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭, 𝐑𝐚𝐣𝐤𝐨𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 ₹𝟖𝟎-𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐓𝐇 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝 for technology start-ups and semiconductor infrastructure in #Dholera and #Sanand, signals a powerful intent to democratize innovation beyond metropolitan clusters. The Gujarat Student Startup & Innovation Hub has already demonstrated strong outcomes by supporting thousands of student innovators and early-stage ventures across domains such as AI, FinTech, AgriTech, HealthTech, CleanTech, and advanced manufacturing, enabling the journey from ideation to market readiness through mentorship, prototyping support, and investor connect. 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐢𝐞𝐫-𝟐 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐞𝐫-𝟑 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤: 🎯 vast untapped talent, 🎯 reduce migration pressure on major cities, 🎯 strengthen local university-industry linkages, 🎯 catalyse innovation tailored to regional economic strengths such as agro-processing in North Gujarat, engineering excellence in Rajkot, textile leadership in Surat, and diversified industrial capability in Vadodara. The introduction of the GROWTH Fund is particularly significant as it addresses the most critical gap in India’s startup lifecycle — access to scale-up capital. By enabling promising ventures to transition from survival to global competitiveness, the fund can attract institutional investors and position Gujarat as a preferred destination for technology entrepreneurship. Simultaneously, semiconductor ecosystem investments in Dholera and Sanand place the state at the forefront of India’s strategic push in electronics manufacturing, opening avenues for deep-tech startups, design innovation, supply-chain enterprises, and high-skilled employment. For aspiring students and young entrepreneurs in regional Gujarat, these initiatives provide unprecedented access to incubation infrastructure, expert mentorship, prototyping facilities, market linkages, and funding pathways without the need to relocate to metros. Collectively, these measures will accelerate the creation of high-value enterprises, strengthen MSME innovation, enhance export competitiveness, and integrate Gujarat more deeply into global technology value chains. The Budget thus lays a strong foundation for inclusive, innovation-driven growth, empowering youth across the state to transform ideas into scalable ventures and reinforcing Gujarat’s emergence as one of India’s most dynamic startup and technology destinations. #ihub #mehsana #innovation #startupecosystem #surat #vadodara #rajkot #textile #msme #fintech #agritech #edtech #cleantech #gujaratbudget2026 #prototype #incubationcentre

🚀 S$37 Billion: Singapore's Master Plan to Become Indispensable by 2030 I’m incredibly energized by National Research Foundation Singapore's Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2030 plan — a bold, multi-year commitment of S$37 billion to secure our position in the next era of global deep tech. It’s a national strategy to make Singapore Inc an essential and trusted partner for the world — from AI to longevity, semiconductors to climate resilience. Here’s where Singapore is placing its biggest bets — and where the next wave of opportunities will be built: 1. 🧠 Core Digital Capabilities (SNDE): Building the Trusted Digital Foundation The Smart Nation & Digital Economy domain is the engine behind all others. AI & Data Advantage: Singapore is building Southeast Asia-tuned large language models like MERALION and SEA-LION, positioning the nation as the region’s trusted AI hub. ➡️ Opportunity: Funding the engineering talent and infrastructure needed to turn these models into real-world applications in finance, logistics, and healthcare. Quantum Security: The national Quantum Programme is building capabilities to protect critical data from next-gen threats, supported by access to systems like the Helios quantum computer. ➡️ Opportunity: Investing in quantum-safe cybersecurity and advanced sensing technologies. 2. ⚕️ Precision Health & Longevity (HHP): The Exportable Asian Solution Singapore’s diverse, multi-ethnic population gives it a unique edge in health and biomedical research. Healthy Longevity Grand Challenge: Driving new insights into maintaining cognitive and physical function — essential for Asia, the world’s fastest-ageing region. Success Story: A*STAR spin-off Mirxes becoming a biomedtech unicorn shows the commercial potential of made-in-Singapore biology IP. ➡️ Opportunity: Co-anchoring clinical development and biomanufacturing to scale diagnostics and therapeutics (including RNA technologies) from lab to global markets. 3. 🏭 Advanced Manufacturing & Climate Resilience (MTC & USS): Securing the Physical Backbone These domains strengthen Singapore’s role in global supply chains and build resilience against existential threats. Semiconductors: The Semiconductor RIE Flagship is doubling down on advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration — high-value segments where Singapore can lead. This creates more potential acquisition targets like Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF). Climate Solutions: The Urban Solutions & Sustainability domain is addressing the “Valley of Death” by expanding funding for translation and testbedding. The rise of Amperesand (NTU spin-off), which raised US$80M for its grid technology, proves Singapore tech is ready for global deployment. ➡️ Opportunity: Backing late-stage commercialization in MRO, maritime solutions, urban systems, and low-carbon materials.

You have money to invest. You have researched the market. But you are still wondering if you choose the right technology to put your money in.   Did you also look into the #patent filings?   Analyzing patent data, or #patentanalytics, can provide insights into who is inventing new technologies and where that is happening. But it can also tell you which technologies are just emerging.   When working on the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO Patent Landscape Report on Graphite and its Applications (https://lnkd.in/eYgSFJk2), we found so many applications for graphite (pencil leads of course, but also electric car batteries, ceramics, packaging…) that we were struggling to figure out how best to see what exactly was happening: some applications had so many patented inventions, some only a few.   Together with our partners from IPOS International, Jinquan Huang and Sun Ting and adapting their approach to take into account not only the number of patents filed but also how recently they were filed, called the Innovation Maturity Matrix, we came up with a way to categorize all the different graphite applications into four categories: emerging, hot topics, well explored areas, and areas where not much is going on.   Read more here https://lnkd.in/eF4gUV2H to find out how to spot emerging areas using patent data.   Now you have one more tool in your toolkit that can help you make the right decision. Image credit: AI generated using Microsoft Designer

"Consumers want to feel confident" is not an insight. It's just a wish. It's not specific enough. Here are 5 things that make a consumer insight actually usable in a brief: 1. Name the tension — what the consumer wants versus what the entire category keeps delivering them 2. Find the say-do gap — what they tell researchers versus what their actual purchase behaviour shows 3. Spot the unspoken tolerance — the compromise they make every single time they buy, that no brand has ever named out loud 4. Define the job — not what they're buying, but what they're trying to accomplish when they consider the product 5. Identify the emotion the whole category ignores — it's difficult to see, but one trick is to ignore the obvious one and ask "why?" a few times until you drill down to the real emotion. Don't go writing "today's consumers are busy, stressed, and want things to be easy" obviously. But make your insight specific enough that it could only point to one brand and one product, and not seven of them simultaneously.

I'm delighted to announce our latest research with Microsoft Advertising, which uncovers where customer journeys most often break down, and what that disconnect means for trust, conversion, and loyalty. Today’s shoppers move seamlessly across devices and channels, but the customer journey isn’t always as joined-up as it should be. Shoppers' expectations are higher than ever before, and they are intolerant of poor experiences. Our research found that device preference (e.g mobile, tablet, laptop, gaming etc) differs considerably across different age groups. And even within the same age group, preferences switch as purchase intentions rise. Consumers often want to start the discovery stage on mobile, but as purchase intent grows, they switch to laptops to have a more immersive experience. Brands that deliver a consistent experience across channels, device, platforms and more, inspire confidence, trust and boost conversion rates. The report focuses on four key pressure points: 🔍 Discovery – the complexity of how consumers search across screens and devices 🤝 Trust – the importance of consistency across every channel, device and ads. 🛒 Conversion – when shoppers click, but get disjointed experiences that drive them away 🧠 Personalisation – what ‘relevance’ really means in the AI era Built on insight from 2,000 UK consumers, Microsoft Advertising data and real brand examples, the report helps businesses turn unified commerce from concept into a practical strategy. 🔗 Get the full picture – download the report now https://lnkd.in/e9abZQQW

Consumer Insights, thy name is Consumer Observation “You see, but you do not observe….Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.”-Sherlock Holmes Brands, in their zest to win consumer’s heart and market share, are going all guns blazing to understand consumer behaviour. Technological advancements & multiple data sources are adding to the many ways which brands are leveraging to better understand their consumers. As much as the ways & means of capturing consumer data evolves, there is no substitute to observing & listening to consumers first hand through home visits. Afterall, consumers are real human beings and not just a data point!! The art & science of observing consumers called as ethnography helps humanize consumers for the brands serving them. A brand which has leveraged ethnographic research methodology effectively for consumer observation to fuel product innovation is Loreal. Having entered Indian market in 1992 and facing challenges from the likes of HUL, P&G, Dabur etc. Loreal, very early, understood the need for ‘close encounters’ with Indian consumers for India specific product innovation – ‘Indo-vation’. Brand has been investing in understanding consumer need through multiple ways including regular consumer home visits. And these in-the-moment, in-context consumer observation exercises have helped discover unmet consumer needs thereby triggering innovation opportunities. It was one such consumer home visit which led to the launch of Garnier Fructis Shampoo+Oil, during 2009-10. While visiting consumers, brand custodians observed that young girls realised the importance of oiling their hair as practiced by their mother but never found the time to do it. Loreal launched Garnier Fructis Shampoo + Oil eliminating the need of two separate haircare routines, thereby saving time for its consumers. No surprise that the product became highest-selling Garnier Fructis variant within a short time of its launch. Getting to know consumers is not a rocket science. All that it needs is a brand with a sincere desire to know consumers and a consumer insight gathering approach which views consumers as they are – human beings with a complex weave of emotion & rationality. Fun fact: One of the earliest success stories of ethnography driven product innovation is 3M. In the 1920s, 3M engineer Richard Drew spent several days at an auto assembly plant, observing how the workers were using his company’s sandpaper. His observations about how workers were using the product and challenges faced by them led to the birth of 3M masking tape!! #ConsumerInsights #ConsumerBehaviour #MarketResearch #Marketing #ProductInnovation