Large groups and innovation : are corporate ventures the solution ?

Corporate ventures consist of creating relationships between large business groups and newly developed businesses. This can be done either by buying part of the capital of the new companies (capital risk operations, joint ventures, acquisitions), or by subcontracting out some parts of the large business group in order to create independent entities (spin-offs; creation of subsidiaries, business units or organisational isolates). Despite a marked increase recently in the number of corporate ventures, they are still badly understood. Four years ago, together with a partner, Sébastien Jumel created a corporate venture entity within EDF called ‘EDF Business Innovation’, and wrote a thesis about corporate ventures. During this session, there was a discussion between Sébastien Jumel and Rodolphe Poiroux, the current director of EDF Business Innovation, about the advantages and difficulties of implementing such practical methods of innovation management in large business groups.