Venture builders are organizations that revolutionize the world we live in. They work behind the scenes to systematically produce new companies, many of which we know today. There are five core activities of venture builders:
- Identifying business ideas
- Building teams
- Finding capital
- Helping govern or manage the ventures
- Providing shared services
There are also two important activities that only some venture builders pursue: employing a methodology of entrepreneurship and providing talent to the ventures.
Today in our prodigy section of Business Touch Magazine we will be talking about one such multi-faceted company. The Embiggen Group is a corporate venturing and innovation group that builds, scales, and invests in new digital ventures at start-up speed with ground-breaking organizations.
Rolan Marco Garcia is the founding CEO & managing partner of the Embiggen Group – an international corporate venturing and innovation group that partners with ambitious organizations and executives to build, scale, and invest in new digital ventures at start-up speed. The Embiggen Group combined corporate leadership and start-up experience under one roof to build the future of organizations and disrupt industries.
With the team’s decades of combined experience in the field of innovation, Embiggen has rapidly grown into a full-service hub for the innovation capability development needs of organizations. By leveraging corporates’ expertise, rich insights, and resources, they provide end-to-end solutions that take their clients from learning to doing.
For the Philippines to see a revolutionary change in the state of innovation in the country, there must be a directive for innovation spearheaded by top-level executives, whether nationwide or within a company, according to a study released by Embiggen.
“’ The Future of Corporate Innovation in the Philippines,’ study which looked at signals of the future and drivers of change in the current business ecosystem, presented three different scenarios of how innovation may look like in the country in the next 10 years. ‘Signals are not trending yet. Some of these are more advanced than others, but these are just nuggets or seeds of how we can imagine different scenarios using the generic foresight process,’” said Rolan
Marco U. Garcia, chief executive officer, and managing partner at Embiggen as well as a co-author of the study.
More About Rolan Marco U. Garcia
Rolan Marco U. Garcia is a recognized innovation consultant by the Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a member of their Think Tank.
Embiggen is the exclusive Certified Training Partner of GIMI in the Philippines. Rolan recently won the world championship in the 2021 Winter IXL Innovation Olympics -the largest and most prestigious innovation consulting competition in the world along with top business schools in the world like MIT and Yale.
Alongside his work at Embiggen, Rolan is an Adjunct Professor in CorporateInnovation Strategy and the Program Director of the Post Graduate Diploma in Corporate Innovation & Digital Leadership at the Asian Institute of Management.
Apart from being an advisor and mentor to various early-stage tech start-ups, Rolan is also the Chief Innovation Officer for one of the biggest and oldest private university groups in the country and is also the Managing Director of the FEU Tech Innovation Center, the first academe-based venture builder in the Philippines.
He holds Bachelor’s degree in Biological Engineering/Biotechnology and a Masters Degree in Innovation and Business from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) which was co-founded by prestigious local and foreign universities, including the Harvard Business School.
1. Academic Background
- Master of Science in Innovation and Business, Asian Institute of Management
- Bachelor of Science in Biological Engineering, Mapua Institute of Technology
- Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Mapua Institute of Technology
2. Professional And Academic Experience
- Founding CEO & Managing Partner, Embiggen Consulting
- Practice Head, Innovation Strategy & Corporate Venturing, Embiggen Consulting
- Think Tank Member & Certified Training Partner for the Philippines, Global Innovation Management Institute, Boston MA
- Mentor for Corporate Innovation &Intrapreneurship, Pocket Mentor Tech, Inc.
- Co-Founder, Neighbourly
- Professional Fellow for Economic Empowerment, U.S. Department of State – YSEALI, ManaUp Hawai’i
3. Affiliations, Awards, And Honors
- Advisory Board Member, Xperto, Inc.
- Winter 2021 IXL Innovation Olympics World Champion, Boston MA, IXL Center – Center for Innovation, Excellence, and Leadership
- Best Accelerator/Incubator Program of the Year – Regional Finalist, Global Startup Awards – ASEAN
- Ecosystem Hero of the Year – Regional Finalist, Global Startup Awards – ASEAN
- Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative – Professional Fellow for Economic Empowerment, U.S. Department of State
- World Debate Champion, Junior Chamber International Asia Pacific Conference
About the Embiggen Group
The Embiggen Group is composed of various units, each dedicated to a specific level of innovation. The firm’s organization was carefully designed by Rolan and his co- founders to cater to the varying innovation needs of corporations: from learning the basics of innovation all the way to co-building new industry-changing ventures.
The Embiggen Institute of Innovation is the firm’s learning and training arm which levels up their clients’ capabilities in innovation and foresight and harnesses them to develop or improve existing products, services, and technology. They instil an innovative corporate culture in their client’s organizations and train intrapreneurs to make their company more competitive through their world-class learning programs delivered by internationally recognized leaders and expert mentors in partnership with the prestigious Asian Institute of Management and the Boston- based Global Innovation Management Institute.
Through Embiggen Foresight, they co-develop strategies alongside their clients to prepare them for the future. The work done here is based on future scenario development, which allows organizations to imagine and speculate what the future may hold. They help revitalize their clients’ environmental scanning approach to include weak signals, horizon scanning, and emerging issues analysis and probe into possible futures in an area of their interest through customized research that focuses on their specific industry, market, and product or service.
Embiggen Digital Ventures is their corporate venture building service where Embiggen co-builds start-ups by leveraging the international corporate experience
of Embiggen’s leaders and their team’s track record of building new and daring successful start-ups. Embiggen’s understanding of start-ups, venturing, and emerging markets put them in a unique situation to diversify and future-proof their clients’ businesses.
Embiggen Capital is Embiggen’s venture capital as-a-service arm which helps corporations find and invest in promising start-ups globally that have the potential to increase their clients’ bottom line. Their clients gain access to relevant insights and connect with leaders in the venture capital space to help them make sound decisions and invest their resources in the right opportunities.
The Embiggen Expert Network is Embiggen’s new micro-consulting platform that provides consulting services to businesses at a more affordable and less-resource intensive rate. Clients are charged by the hour, whereas traditional consulting services are charged based on a full engagement contract. Through the Embiggen Expert Network, clients can book consultations based on their needs and challenges, and the platform will match them to an expert who can address their innovation needs.
The motivation behind the Embiggen Group
Embiggen was founded on the belief that through venture building and venture investing, established businesses can solve the world’s most pressing
problems, including mental health, climate change, water, poverty, financial access, and education to name a few. Embiggen helps corporations amplify their
impact and build new capabilities through innovation-led growth.
Accelerating an organization’s growth, especially during times of crisis is no easy achievement, but Embiggen is equipped with some of the most experienced innovation and foresight consulting experts in the world.
Corporations face multiple problems growing their businesses, which is compounded by crises that they may or may not have anticipated like pandemics, and economic recessions. Embiggen aims to enable organizations to grow and continue growing through innovation.
One problem that Embiggen has identified is that the management of the majority of corporations in emerging markets lacks leaders who are well-versed in innovation. Another problem is that some organizations are comfortable with the status quo and innovation is just an afterthought.
Furthermore, many corporations have structures and processes that aren’t conducive to innovation. These corporations may not have had access to the proper tools and methods that help foster innovation and facilitate their growth. They may not be familiar with the best practices to generate new ideas and advanced initiatives. Unfortunately, it is commonplace for leading corporations to be disrupted by a more agile start-up that wasn’t even on their radar.
Embiggen helps organizations gain an edge over their competitors, by innovating their business models, co-building new ventures, and investing in promising startups.
What is unique about the Embiggen Group
Embiggen is disrupting the traditional management consulting business model. They are the first hybrid tech management consulting firm focused on corporate innovation and strategic foresight with a specialization in emerging markets.
Regardless of where an organization is in its journey, Embiggenhas a full suite of innovation and foresight services to match its client’s needs. Their comprehensive selection of innovative solutions uniquely positions Embiggen to cater to the needs of organizations wherever they are in their innovation journey as an end-to-end innovation consulting firm.
When organizations partner with Embiggen, their partnership-doesn’t end once their clients develop the capability to innovate. Embiggen partners with their clients from day one as they build their capacity to innovate, all the way to co-executing their clients’ innovation initiatives.
Whether an organization is just beginning or is already one of the industry leaders, Embiggen has something to offer that can take any business one step further in its innovation journey.
Embiggen’s central methodology for growth intertwines strategic foresight with innovation management. It is one of the handfuls of consulting firms with a specialization in strategic foresight, a necessary practice that helps organizations visualize and plan for their future. The majority of organizations in emerging markets lack familiarity and understanding of strategic foresight and thus are vulnerable to being disrupted.
Strategic foresight and future thinking allow organizations to methodically identify up-and-coming products, services, and business practices before they become a major trend. It also allows them to anticipate and prepare for future events, crises, and happenings before they take place.
While many organizations are satisfied by building new growth, Embiggen’s mission does not stop there. They strive to create emerging growth that will persist throughout an organization’s future. Two new ways of building innovation, Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) and Corporate Venture Building are the keys to sustaining growth.
Embiggen, therefore, is at the forefront of the consulting industry by offering its services to organizations who want to unlock long-term sustainable growth through their unique and strategic approach to innovation.
Company’s Culture Being Followed At the Embiggen Group
Embiggen Group represents traits from both corporations and start-ups. The environment in the company is full of young and vibrant people but at the same time, they are very capable and intelligent. The work environment is flexible, wherein it is output-based. In the company, the employees are lifelong learners and like to experiment as well since innovation is at the heart of the company and its actions.
Business Objectives of the Embiggen Group
The objectives of Embiggen are to define the future of trailblazing organizations, and to co-create a world where modernization is widespread and mainstream. Ln help future organizations grow, the company aims to create unique and tailor-made solutions to solve the client’s challenges and grow their organizations, to prepare organizations to become future-proof and disruptive, and to unlock new growth for organizations through corporate innovation and foresight services.
How does the Embiggen Group generate customer referrals?
Embiggen has two main sources to generate customer referrals.
- Internally, by leveraging the wide network of BOD and consultants in the company.
- Externally, the company can generate customer referrals from previous clients that would refer the company to their partners when the project is done successfully.
Future Plans of the Embiggen Group
Embiggen Group aims to first scale current services and expand into the Southeast Asian market. Embiggen believes that the next wave of innovation at scale will be coming from this region. Embiggen is planning to primarily focus on corporate venture building through Embiggen Digital Ventures where the company will build new successful start-ups together with corporations to diversify their businesses. Later on, Embiggen aims to expand into other emerging markets in the Middle East and South America.
