Innovate or Inhibit?

I was recently part of a very interesting debate at Google Campus hosted by Pearson Plc called ‘Innovate or Inhibit: Can large companies collaborate with smaller businesses?’. It was a lively debate and a fun event which has been rather brilliantly summarised visually below by Scriberia. [Click on the image to see it in detail.]

Most of the key discussions are also well summarised in this article on the Pearson Connecting the Dots site which are well worth a look too. And whilst I agree will almost all of the points made, I vehemently disagree with the first point, namely that start-ups overconfidence often hinder a projects success. In my experience the arrogance often falls with the big company, not the small company, and if a small company doesn’t believe in their idea then nobody else will. Anyway, I would argue that large and small companies need each other more than ever so we need to figure out a way to communicate as equals and create shared value which is definitely not easy but necessary.

by Roland