The Smart City Innovation Lab hosted Grundfos’ 40 best sales people from all over the world for the “Discover the Smart City” workshop at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics. As a global leader in water solutions, Grundfos is setting the standards in terms of innovation, efficiency, reliability and sustainability. With this workshop, Grundfos aims at discovering, developing and implementing the best smart city business idea until the end of 2019.
40 people, 2 days, 7 tasks, 1 goal! The first day was focused on Idea Creation. This consisted of selecting the best smart city business idea, choosing the most promising market segment and describing the smart city solution in terms of the user, partner, stakeholder, technological and company specifications.
“I am absolutely fascinated by this process. It is incredible how in only one day you can already see a concrete idea taking shape.”
– Workshop participant
The second day was focused on Idea Development. This consisted of publishing a press release, developing a sound business model, analyzing the market characteristics and identifying potential adaptations to the business model. In the end, the teams summarized these two days into a 10 minute pitch delivered to Grundfos’ executive board.
“Many people work with pumps within their own little area every day. What the Smart City Innovation Lab has been able to give us is the bigger picture, the bigger perspective, so that we don’t just see our role, but also where we can fit into the overall ecosystem; this has been very valuable.”
– Andreas Kolind, Customer Insights Manager at Grundfos
The event is over, but the work only just began. All teams are currently working on our Smart Business Modeler platform and continue to receive our full support on how to further develop their smart city business ideas: conducting good market research, aligning their value proposition and developing a sound business model.
Congratulations go to all participants for their magnificent ideas and remarkable effort, with a special mention to the region of China whose smart city idea won the most support from the audience! By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, this team unfailingly arrived at their chosen goal – Vasco da Gama. Congratulations!
