| | September 20168CIOReviewBy Kalpana Maniar, President& CIO, Edelweiss Financial ServicesHeadquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Edelweiss Financial Services (NSE: EDELWEISS) is one of India's leading diversified financial services company with market cap of INR 5,736 crores. The company provides a broad range of financial products and services for Retail Finance, Commodities, Financial Markets, Asset Management and Life Insurance.OPINIONIN MYCIOs are under increasing pressure to play a role in technology-driven business transformation and innovation. The expectation from their role covers efficiently servicing the business as usual and embracing new innovative capabilities. The role becomes extremely challenging when the existing business is growing and there are new businesses being setup. To add to the complexity is the fast evolving technology landscape. Innovation requires the ability to experiment and follow the mantra "fail fast fail cheap". Here are few ideas for CIOs on using internal and external innovation methodologies.Engaging with Start-upsJust depending on internal innovation ideas becomes limited at times. Many CIOs are working with start-ups as a part of their innovation strategy. This gives access to external innovation teams which are thinking differently, experimenting with new ideas and hungry for success. Start-ups with cutting edge ideas can help achieve competitive differentiation. The agility and nimbleness provided by start-ups brings quick wins though there are many cultural, structural, behavioural and process-related differences they have with a formal corporate set-up. Large corporate find it difficult to understand start-ups and start-ups don't understand corporate functioning at times. Working with start-ups requires the enterprise technology team to challenge existing culture, structures and processes.There are start-ups that are associated with or supported by established infrastructure, platform and service providers. Partnership with these start-ups provides a distinct advantage of quick experimentation and possibility of scale-up when needed. It is worthwhile to create a visible, single access point for start-ups with clarity on process and next steps. CIO's ability to co-create agile solutions with start-ups can bring competitive advantage for business. Accelerator programs are a promising way for large companies to better understand and leverage emerging technologies. Starting an accelerator program is a strategic decision that allows an enterprise to stay relevant and CIOs and the Road to Innovation
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