The Embiggen Group, a Filipino-led innovation consulting agency, recently launched a venture builder to help clients execute their strategies.
“Employees are not comfortable with the process and speed of execution that startups usually have to go through every day. You can outsource that to us, an organization that already has the expertise of scaling a startup or venture from an idea,” said Embiggen co-founder Rolan Marco U. Garcia, at the virtual launch on Sept. 8.
Embiggen, which partnered with the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and the innovation standard certification body Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI) in 2021, counts among its clients Pfizer Philippines Inc., HSBC Philippines, and the Ayala Corporation.
“We started as a consulting company, then more and more companies asked help with how they can actually execute, more than just giving them strategies,” said Mr. Garcia.
Embiggen’s ongoing corporate venture building projects include a Philippine insurance company creating a platform for mental health, work-life balance, and financial literacy for millennials and Gen Zs; and a food and manufacturing company that wants to solve logistics problems for Filipino micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“This is a call to action for conglomerates who want to go into innovation because maybe the pandemic gave them an existential crisis that ‘we need to have other options than what we are currently doing,’” said Embiggen co-founder Paul A. Pajo, who also pointed out that the Philippines ranked 51st out of 132 economies in the 2021 Global Innovation Index, dropping one spot from its ranking the year prior.
In its own 2021 study “The Future of Corporate Innovation in the Philippines,” Embiggen highlighted that support and investments from government, incubators, and venture capitalists can further enrich the startup economy.
“Beyond strategy, we’ve seen some conglomerate lines really asking for help with execution,” Mr. Pajo said. — Brontë H. Lacsamana
