Impact of COVID-19: Innovation in times of crisis

At the Bankinter Innovation Foundation we have held a series of webinars to learn about the impact of COVID-19 on different social and economic areas and the opportunities we can find within this situation, including innovation.

The third webinar “Innovation in times of crisis” has served to highlight key concepts about innovation and how innovation can help us create a positive impact during and after this crisis.

Moderated by Juan Moreno Bau, director of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, experts Peter Coffee, Vice President of Strategic Research at Salesforce, and Larry Keeley, CEO at Doblin Group, participated in this webinar.

Below, you can learn about the most relevant points of his interventions.

For Peter Coffee, the worst thing you can do now is say that you are too busy dealing with the crisis and surviving it to think about superfluous things like innovation. We must see the crisis as a unique opportunity to accelerate innovation and anticipate the new needs that arise as a result of the pandemic.

For Peter there are a number of areas with great innovative potential, both now and in the future, which are being accelerated by the crisis:

• The future of work
• Blockchain
• Artificial intelligence
• Digital Health
• Education

A key point Peter points to is, since we are immersed, by obligation, in a new way of doing things, how can we maximize the value we bring to society? He illustrates this key with the case of FORD, which has been able to adapt its production chains in record time to manufacture assisted ventilation equipment for patients with SARS-CoV-2. The question to ask is: “What are your differential competencies and how could they be used in new ways, creating competitive advantages?”

Another fundamental key is the speed, the immediacy of our response by making a solution available on the market. Today this is possible thanks to the existing Cloud Computing ecosystem: resources, systems, applications, available in a matter of minutes.

Finally, the crisis has evolved the concept of innovation from optimization to resilience: anticipation, audacity, adaptability, foresight, scenario planning, speed, and relying on the ecosystem, as the main beams of resilience.

For his part, Larry Keeley shared the keys to effective innovation and what innovations are allowing society to “reboot”.

After more than 4 decades as a researcher in the field of innovation and verifying that only 4.5% of innovative actions are successful, Larry has distilled three keys that all effective and successful large-scale innovations share:

• “Culturally Cool”: innovations that are very well accepted by society as something advanced, useful and desirable.
• “Technologically Elegant”: simple, easy to use, no complexities for the end user.
• “Fair Business Model”: The proposed business model is mostly seen as fair.

Applying these keys, Larry illustrated with examples the five innovations that are allowing the world to face the pandemic and reactivate social and economic activities, while a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 arrives:

1. Diagnostic tests: That they are affordable, safe, robust, massive.
2. Predictive models: That allow us to know when, where and how to take what kind of measures to contain Covid-19.
3. Contact Tracing: With apps that allow the monitoring of infections and alert of nearby infections.
4. Disinfection: Protocols certified by epidemiologists to carry out deep disinfections in public places, which give full confidence to the citizen.
5. Immunity card: It should be optional, but available to anyone who requires it. Based on Blockchain for exhaustive control.

There is a great innovation to come, according to Larry: the one that brings us the coronavirus vaccine, and others, more of a socio-psychological and cultural nature, which will be the ones that will allow us to rebuild face-to-face social contacts.

In conclusion, experts recommend taking the current crisis as an opportunity to innovate and transform ourselves, and to understand that both innovation and transformation are not projects with an end date, but continuous processes with no expiration date.