Through this agreement, CEOE joins Más Empresa as a 'partner', which already has 46 partners and more than 7,300 users, for the development of two joint calls for open innovation challenges, the launch of an exclusive online program on the new business development axes and the dissemination of digital training content aimed at adapting small businesses to the new reality
The agreement signed between the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and Ibercaja seeks to promote innovation and transformation in the Spanish productive fabric through different initiatives promoted within the framework of the More Company Ecosystem of the bank.
The agreement, which has been signed virtually by the president of Ibercaja, José Luis Aguirre, and by the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, is part of the line of collaboration maintained in recent years between both institutions for the organization of activities that reinforce the competitiveness of companies and promote their development in the medium and long term.
As José Luis Aguirre has stated, “at Ibercaja, we accompany our clients, in addition to our financial services, through different value-added services, such as this ecosystem, which makes innovation solutions available to companies, strategy or transformation that we understand are necessary to boost its activity ”.
For his part, Antonio Garamendi has praised this Ibercaja initiative, “which is more necessary than ever”, while stressing that, for CEOE, it is “important to join a project that addresses the challenges in terms of transformation and innovation for the Spanish company in a holistic way and that, in addition, contributes to make visible cases of good practices ”.
Likewise, it has valued positively that the More Company Ecosystem is aimed at companies of all types and sizes, "as a faithful reflection of the diversity of the productive fabric of our country".
Among the points of the agreement, which involves the incorporation of CEOE as a ‘partner’ of the More Company Ecosystem, highlights the launch of two joint calls for open innovation challenges (‘open innovation’) from the existing platform in More Company (https://ecosistemamasempresa.ibercaja.es/actividades/retos-de-open-innovation ).
Through these calls, 20 large Spanish companies will be able to incorporate new external entrepreneurial talent, which will participate in solving the organizational or business challenges they face.
A new and exclusive program of conferences and online activities will also be launched so that 150 SMEs can deepen, understand and share the impact of the six key axes for the future of companies (innovation, digitization, entrepreneurship, cultural transformation, diversity and sustainability), as well as sharing their knowledge and experiences.
This collaboration agreement is also aimed at one of the groups most affected by the impact of Covid-19, the commercial distribution sector. In this case, 12 hours of specific digital content will be made available to 500 businesses and small businesses to help them adapt to the new environment.
In particular, the usefulness of digital channels to increase business sales, the keys to improving economic management and the transformation of commerce towards omnichannel without losing its identity will be discussed, among others.
Open innovation challenges platform
One of the main lines of this collaboration agreement is based on the call for open innovation challenges. Companies pose different needs for solutions, with the aim of seeking external talent in startups, SMEs and micro-SMEs, to activate innovation within their organizations through collaboration, incentivized with rewards.
Companies associated with CEOE and the Spanish Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs Associations (CEAJE) will now have access to this program in order to amplify its dissemination and promote collaboration and integration of business projects through the challenge program provided for in this agreement.
Since its creation, 14 companies have participated with 18 proposed challenges, to which 34 startups have applied so far.
In addition, through this framework, companies associated with CEOE will also be able to join Más Empresa and access events such as #TendUP, where they will be able to learn about the most disruptive business trends in the market, exposed by startups and scaleups that have been capable of realizing them in real business models.
The More Company Ecosystem is a project promoted by Ibercaja and Fundación Ibercaja which, in its two years of operation, has 46 partners, more than 7,300 users and has organized more than 130 activities, with the participation of more than 5,900 businessmen, executives and professionals.
