Innovation Booster: accelerating intrapreneurship within BNP Paribas RISK

Any employee can now become an intrapreneur

Through entities such as We Are Innovation (WAI) or, more recently, Plug and Play, BNP Paribas supports entrepreneurs and start-ups working in FinTech.

For several years now, the Group has also begun to capitalize on disruptive ideas arising from its own employees. The People’s LAB in France, the Home for Innovation in Belgium, or the Lux Future Lab in Luxembourg all aim to encourage employees to set out on their own intrapreneurial adventure.

In 2017, its Innovation Booster program got off to a successful start.

From an idea to a prototype: a selection of high-quality projects

Innovation Booster is an internal incubator open to all employees of the function. Its goal is to facilitate the process of generating ideas, drive reflection on innovative concepts and then develop the most promising ones.

All 170 applications showed the full extent of the function’s potential and enthusiasm to create and innovate. Chosen participants had the opportunity to experience a project in start-up mode:

1. Generating ideas: for three days, 70 employees from around the world and with various skillsets teamed up to work together on generating original ideas. Teams then translated these ideas into simplified business cases.
2. Incubation: five ideas were selected and available employees volunteered to spend several days at WAI to further develop the ideas. 
3. Prototyping: Finally, three projects were presented to RISK’s top management, which approved them for the prototyping phase. Our intrapreneurs received two months to continue working on their projects.

At the end of this phase, the first prototypes were presented to management for a decision on their production.

Innovation Booster: the incubator for intrapreneurs from BNP Paribas RISK

The incubation phase is a pivotal step in any project. Coming immediately before any decision to invest in a prototype, this step serves to flesh out budding ideas. 

To ensure the best chances of success to every project, Innovation Booster provides each intrapreneur with tailored support. Employees have a chance to discover new ways of working that are inspired directly from the start-up world’s favorite methodologies (design thinking, agile method, reiteration, pitch, etc.). 

During this phase, each team works to define their project, notably in terms of:

1. Customer experience: a detailed description of customer needs and the new concept to meet these needs
2. Product: the first prototype, providing a concrete vision of the first versions of the finished product
3. Ecosystem: identifying internal and external partners, and forming the best team for the project launch
4. Data and architecture: description of the company’s model, architecture and target
   
5. Economic model: necessary investments, as well as revenue projections