Thinking about innovation in terms of capabilities: linking timeframes, skills and exosystems

There is a particular sense of satisfaction in seeing results align with what truly drives us. The projects recently entrusted to Cobelty Academy are a good illustration of this. Across three different scales and with very diverse audiences, they embody a core belief that underpins Cobelty: in increasingly asymmetrical technological environments, innovation is not merely about producing R&D results. It requires understanding these environments, mastering their drivers, mobilising the necessary capabilities and developing them over the long term.

Three projects, three scales, three target audiences

Cobelty can now announce a new project to raise awareness of issues relating to patents, open source and standardisation for digital technologies, commissioned by Mission France 6G and aimed at SMEs and mid-market companies.
This follows on from an initial project secured as part of the EUC’s RESSE initiative — Reinforcing the European Standardisation System through Education — via ETSI, focusing on strengthening the European standardisation system through education.
A third project by Cobelty Academy, carried out in partnership with the University of Rennes in an international context, complements this initiative. It involves a post-baccalaureate master’s degree incorporating a work-study programme. Three projects, therefore, at three levels — European, national and regional — and targeting audiences ranging from the European ecosystem to SMEs and mid-cap companies, right through to students on work-study programmes. This diversity is particularly stimulating. It also demonstrates that the challenges of intellectual property, open source and standardisation — as well as the ability to master and harness them — cut across organisations, sectors and regions. We are particularly touched by the trust placed in Cobelty on issues that have become essential for technological sovereignty, resilience and strategic autonomy.

Aligning the timeframes of innovation

An R&D project may need to produce results quickly. But building and maintaining a capacity for innovation involves different timeframes. Technological innovation requires renewal: new knowledge and skills, new ideas, new generations of researchers and engineers, but also knowledge transfer, learning, experimentation and maturation. It also arises from the intersections between disciplines, skills, technologies and exosystems. The timeframe of a project is therefore not the same as that required to acquire a skill. The timeframe for a standard to mature is not the same as that for a strategic decision. The timeframe for building an exosystem is not the same as that for a technological development cycle. The challenge is not to choose between these timeframes, but to coordinate them.
Being ‘smart’ does not mean choosing between the short term and the long term. It means knowing how to build and combine the necessary capabilities, whilst coordinating the different time horizons.

Thinking about innovation in terms of capabilities

This is also one of the lessons learnt from a year of fieldwork on innovation: an R&D outcome alone is not enough to create the capacity to act. One must also be able to capitalise on it: knowing what to protect or share, how to contribute to standards, organise a technology transfer, develop the necessary skills, mobilise resources or forge the right alliances. Intellectual property, open source, standardisation and technology transfer thus all contribute to the same question: what capabilities does an organisation need to act, evolve and preserve its capacity for innovation?
This is what we seek to explore through the concept of capability architecture: a coherent set of technologies, knowledge, skills, intangible assets, partners and organisational models. In particular, this architecture enables us to distinguish between what can be acquired and what must be developed, and between what can be drawn upon from the exosystem and what must be mastered in-house. It is necessarily evolving: skills are acquired, developed, passed on and renewed; technologies evolve; exosystems transform; and new asymmetries emerge. Being ‘smart’ is not about choosing between the short term and the long term. It is about knowing how to build and combine the necessary capabilities, whilst coordinating the different time horizons.

This approach also underpins Cobelty.

In environments where organisations do not have the same information, skills, resources or access to networks and opportunities, the ability to understand, experiment, learn and mobilise the right levers becomes strategic. This is why Cobelty brings together three complementary dimensions:

• Cobelty Strategic Intelligence, to understand technological dynamics, power balances and changes in the environment;
• Cobelty Labs, to explore, experiment and transform ideas into solutions;
• Cobelty Academy, to develop and impart the skills needed to master and harness these levers.

Added to this framework is DreamLand by Cobelty, currently in the testing phase, which explores a solution designed to facilitate access to certain capabilities and thereby limit the effects of certain asymmetries. These different dimensions are not separate offerings. They form a single system designed to build, mobilise and develop the capabilities needed to take action. Cobelty Academy’s three missions now give very concrete expression to this ambition.

And other prospects are beginning to take shape. A number of discussions are currently underway regarding Cobelty’s international development, giving rise to new opportunities. Whilst we cannot predict these, they reinforce the relevance of this vision and its ability to address issues that extend far beyond any single sector, organisation or region.

Cobelty is delighted to see this vision gradually taking shape, both in France and internationally, and to contribute to building innovation capacities that are better managed, more resilient and capable of evolving over the long term.