umlaut boosts innovation offering in energy industry with Innoloft
German consulting firm umlaut and the tech ecosystem Innoloft have entered into a cooperation agreement to support companies in the energy industry with innovation management.
Having split from The P3 Group in late 2019, umlaut is now an independent consulting firm specialised in consulting, engineering and digital services, providing innovative solutions across all private sectors and their various intersections as well as serving the public sector.
The alliance with Innoloft is led by its Energy practice, and will help its energy industry clients better manage innovation processes and governance. umlaut brings extensive expertise in technology and management consulting – as well as a global reach thanks to its citizen of international network Nextcontinent – while Innoloft brings in a digital B2B tech ecosystem and the Digital Innovation Assistant, a tool for automating innovation and technology scouting.
This assistant inspires employees to keep innovation at the top of their agenda, because “mostly for capacity reasons, the topic of innovation often takes a back seat in everyday business,” said Sven Pietsch, the Chief Executive Officer of Innoloft. “Every week, our Digital Innovation Assistant sends respective employees an innovation idea that is just right for them. This helps companies embed the topic of innovation.”
By collaborating, umlaut and Innoloft can provide innovation management services from conception through to the implementation of operational scouting and screening, as well as the provision of innovation ecosystems.
Commenting on the news, Jonas Kampik, a Managing Director at umlaut, said, “The transformation of the energy system – be it through technological change or political and regulatory requirements – leads to considerable pressure on the entire value chain, which can only be reduced in the long term through innovation. The impending gaps in revenues can often only be closed by new business models, and the blurring of industry boundaries and an increasingly confusing competitive landscape make external stimuli necessary. By cooperating with Innoloft, we are now closing the innovation gap even more consistently with our usual end-to-end thinking.”
The news could provide a game changer for smaller energy companies in particular, who rarely have their own innovation department or have only limited resources to deal with new technologies and business models. As a result of their spending limitations, these firms often miss out on trends and opportunities to develop attractive business models with new solutions.
However, with umlaut and Innoloft’s cooperation, they can more easily access the huge innovation potential in the Innoloft ecosystem and to allow them to evaluate and implement new business models.
Pietsch remarked: “Leveraging our global network of technology suppliers, start-ups and research institutes we help companies generate ideas, umlaut then supports companies in the evaluation and implementation process.”