Old Dog, New Tricks
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is not easy to teach new tricks to the business world's old dogs. The latest fashionable solution for big corporations slowed down by bureaucracy and traditional ways of thinking is to incubate tech start-ups. The idea is that the big corporation benefits from the creativity and "can do" attitude of the start-up. In return the start-up gets funding, professional advice and help navigating the corporate world to reach the top decision makers. The model is known as "corporate acceleration" and it is growing in popularity. Evan Davis hears how it works.
GUESTS:
Jess Williamson, Director, Techstars with Barclays FinTech Accelerator
David Fogel, Head of Accelerator & Deputy Director at Wayra UK
Emily Forbes, Founder, Seenit
Producer: Julie Ball.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Evan Davis. Thank you for downloading this programme. In this edition of the bottom line, |
| 0:04.6 | we're discussing accelerator programmes that nurture entrepreneurial talent and sometimes finance younger businesses. |
| 0:12.5 | Hello and welcome to the programme. Now, business is often about relationships, |
| 0:16.5 | and we're looking at a relatively novel form of business relationship today. It's the corporate |
| 0:20.9 | equivalent of adoption, or perhaps fostering is the better metaphor. A parent company takes under |
| 0:27.3 | its wing a young startup company or several of them. The big corporate hands over money and advice |
| 0:33.8 | and a warm place to shelter. And what does it get back? Good question, we'll find out. But the business buzzword for you to take away is that this is the corporate accelerator model and it is really catching on. And with three guests with experience of being a parent or one of their foster ease and they can tell us all about it and let's meet them. And my first guest is David Fogel from Telefonica O2, the Spanish telecommunications group. |
| 0:57.9 | He is head of acceleration at something called the WIRA program. |
| 1:02.5 | So what is WIRA, David? |
| 1:04.1 | So WIRA is a company owned by Telephonica, O2. |
| 1:08.7 | We invest in early stage startups, technology-based and digital, |
| 1:13.2 | and give them a program for 10 months, basically helping them improve the business, |
| 1:18.0 | hopefully get revenue clients and get further investments. |
| 1:21.3 | Right. And do they, I mean, just give us a sort of physical description here. |
| 1:24.5 | Is this inside the main headquarters? Are you stuck away in a business |
| 1:28.9 | park in a remote park? So we're based between Warren Street and Good Street. In central London. |
| 1:33.8 | In central London. Yeah. And it's basically a hub for about 180 people. |
| 1:40.0 | 180 people. How many different businesses is there? So I think currently we have about 28 different |
| 1:46.1 | businesses, 15 from this year. So the new accelerated startups and some alumni that we still support |
| 1:53.2 | and some people coming in and out. Okay. So that's Waira. Now how telephonic or O2 is presumably |
| 1:59.9 | how many thousands of people? |
| 2:02.4 | 128,000 people. |
... |
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