Development & Innovation unit
New ideas take off
The “Development & Innovation” unit brings knowledge, expertise and new partners to Swiss Post. As an innovation platform, it supports the Group units and develops Group-wide projects, and bundles them into subject-specific development programmes.
As a hub for the development of business ideas, the “Development & Innovation” unit gets new ideas off the ground. Its specialists help the Group units to identify new business ideas and develop innovations, and to expand them into new business areas. The unit draws on the innovative capacity of 60,000 employees, connects units within Swiss Post and drives forward Group-wide projects. It does this by making use of collaborative web platforms.
The “Development & Innovation” unit works with the very latest tools for innovation management, some of them developed internally and tailored to the specific needs of Swiss Post. These include for example the smart INN process used to get promising projects ready for the market, ideally in less than eight months. Swiss Post has tailored the company suggestions scheme Postidea to its own specific needs, as it has also done with CO-STAR, the system used to structure business ideas.
Swiss Post works with numerous external innovation partners. Its partner network includes start-ups, universities and state institutions, as well as foreign postal companies.
Swiss Post wants to use the ideas of its 60,000 employees. Where they want to simplify processes, improve quality, make work safer or more environmentally friendly or optimize products, employees can submit their ideas through Postidea, the company suggestions scheme.
Outline, enlarge upon, optimize, pilot and introduce onto the market. Promising ideas and projects from employees go through these steps in the cross-unit INN process – ideally in less than eight months. The Group makes around 13 million francs per year available for this process (1.5 per thousand of the Group’s expected turnover), assuming part of the financial risk and providing an incentive to implement innovative and sustainable projects.
CO-STAR is the system used by Swiss Post to structure business ideas. CO-STAR enables employees to quickly and easily identify the key elements of their ideas, and to describe and implement them. Each of the letters in CO-STAR stands for a central element in all business ideas: Customer – Opportunity – Solution – Team – Advantage – Results. You can find more information about CO-STAR on the web application “CO-STAR Creator”.
Link: www.co-star.ch
Start-ups, universities, state institutions, postal companies abroad and corporate groups: Swiss Post works closely with numerous external innovation partners. The “Development & Innovation” unit maintains and cultivates the network of partners, brings the right experts together and supports the Group units in projects with external partners.
Swiss Post is particularly interested in start-ups. But it is also interested in cross-company collaborations such as the mobility lab in Sion: the joint project between the city of Sion in the Canton of Valais, the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne), HES-SO (the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland) and PostBus has rapidly developed into a testing environment for mobility-related innovations.
Swiss Post seeks contact with start-ups pursuing promising business ideas in the communication, logistics, retail finance and passenger transport markets. If the start-ups are interested, Swiss Post enters into dialogue with them and develops a use case together with them. In searching for suitable start-ups, Swiss Post works with TechBridge (for Switzerland) and the Plug&Play Tech Center (for Silicon Valley/USA).
Lots of ideas in a very short time: on pitching days, start-ups present their business ideas to the Swiss Post specialists. Three to four concise presentations followed by a discussion highlight numerous approaches and possibilities in a short space of time. An intense dialogue quickly ensues between the invited companies and Swiss Post experts, enabling them to identify and substantiate any business potential.
In 2017, Swiss Post will once again run the PostVenture programme. PostVenture helps to find the most promising business ideas. Both Swiss Post staff and external applicants are entitled to send in ideas.
To identify the most promising external business ideas, Swiss Post works with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, based at the ZHAW School of Management and Law. External participants with promising ideas are invited to formulate their proposals using the CO-STAR method and to present them internally to Swiss Post. Should both sides be interested in continuing to work together, the participants will receive support in developing a detailed business idea.
You can find more information on how to participate and submit ideas here.
Contact: Roland Keller, Head of Innovation Projects, roland.keller@swisspost.ch
Do you have questions about Swiss Post’s innovations or would you like to become an innovation partner?
We would be happy to help.
Swiss Post
“Development & Innovation” unit
innovation@swisspost.ch
