On August 19th and 20th, Insper offered a unique experience for professionals seeking to shape the future of business. The third edition of the International Innovation Seminar brought together renowned experts to share knowledge and strategic insights on the latest market trends. With a rich and inspiring schedule, carefully designed for senior professionals, innovation executives, C-level leaders, decision-makers, and entrepreneurs, the event provided a space for the exchange of disruptive ideas, created valuable networking opportunities, and encouraged participants to reflect on how innovation will impact organizations, businesses, and individuals.

In the event's opening, Insper President, Guilherme Martins, emphasized the importance of promoting an innovation culture that permeates all areas of knowledge and empowers professionals to face future challenges. "We believe in the 'Insper Way.' We strive to integrate different areas of knowledge, design programs with this vision and combine teaching with applied research. We believe that practice is a powerful way to learn good theory. We bring real-world problems into the classroom as themes for our research projects," said Martins. "To achieve this, we must stay close to organizations from both the public and private sectors. The type of engagement we are having here today at the Paulo Cunha Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub is essential for this purpose."

Following that, Bruno Rocha, Country Head of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Brazil, the seminar's sponsor, highlighted the importance of the newly announced 10-year partnership between TCS and Insper, with the goal of developing innovative solutions for key clients and supporting Brazil's growth in various sectors. Rocha emphasized TCS's long-term commitment to innovation in the country, stressing that the company, with over 20 years of operation in Brazil and about 6,000 employees, sees Insper as the ideal partner to achieve these goals. “Through this partnership and this seminar, our goal is to go even further. We are sponsoring this event because we believe it will bring together the best innovations from around the world. We have invited top-level speakers who, I am sure, will add immense value to all of us,” he said.

In turn, Rodrigo Amantea, Head of the Paulo Cunha Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub, provided a brief overview of the center's activities. “The main pillars of the Hub are innovation with partner organizations, connection with our academic programs, and encouragement of entrepreneurship, especially for our alumni. We offer consulting services, acceleration programs, and we are connecting alumni with investment opportunities, in addition to revitalizing angel investment in partnership with Insper Angels,” he highlighted.

Building a Culture of Innovation

Opening the event on August 19, Shuya Gong, professor of innovation at the Harvard University School of Engineering, gave a masterclass on building and maintaining cultures of innovation in companies. She noted that innovation is an iterative process to solve problems by aligning incentive systems. Shuya drew an analogy between a vitamin and a painkiller. "If you are a vitamin, you need to focus on the narrative and show how you are preventing a problem. If you are a painkiller, you need to work on the solution since everyone knows the problem and will critically evaluate your solution," she compared. "LinkedIn came late to the social networking scene, but it emerged as a painkiller, addressing the problem of keeping the professional network separate from the social network."

The revolutionary side of innovation, which inspires new things, is to build empathy with the customer, in Shuya's opinion. "Follow these steps: understand your customer, what their tasks are, how they feel about performing them, what their tasks are, how we can help accomplish these tasks more satisfactorily, and then think of ideas," she said. She then cautioned about what the World Economic Forum calls the "poly-crisis era," involving the catastrophe of climate change, job loss due to AI automation, and the mental health crisis on social media. "We are dealing with all these things happening at once. And this means that there is a major shift in how businesses have approached innovation from the beginning. In the poly-crisis era, we are at a point where we really need to think about what our collaborative advantage is," she stated.

Innovation with Structured Processes

Shuya Gong then participated in a round of debates with Vijay Srinivasan, head of innovation at TCS, Carolina da Costa, Chief Investment and Sustainability Officer at Stone, and Gustavo Tavares, professor at Insper. The discussion was moderated by Rodrigo Amantea.

Shuya initiated the panel by highlighting the importance of linking innovation with well-structured processes, emphasizing that “innovation is any process to solve problems by aligning its incentive systems.” According to her, by creating an environment where incentives are aligned, organizations can establish a solid foundation for creativity and problem-solving to thrive. Shuya reinforced that innovation does not happen by chance but through a deliberate effort to create processes that allow innovative ideas to develop effectively.

Vijay Srinivasan, from TCS, expanded on this idea by sharing how his company cultivates innovation at different levels of involvement. He explained that TCS promotes innovation by creating small teams dedicated to ideation and giving them the autonomy needed to explore new ideas without fear of failure. According to Vijay, by providing an environment where employees feel safe to experiment and fail, TCS manages to foster a continuous innovation ecosystem.

Carolina da Costa, from Stone, brought a financial perspective to the debate, discussing how her company adopts a strategic approach by allocating a part of the budget specifically for innovation projects. She emphasized that this disciplined process allows innovation to be directly linked to business results, encouraging employees to think like entrepreneurs within the organization.

Professor Gustavo Tavares, in turn, addressed innovation from the human resources perspective, emphasizing that “innovation happens through people.” He highlighted the importance of aligning skills, motivation, and opportunities, as well as underlining the crucial role of leadership in signaling the relevance of innovation. The panel concluded with a consensus on the need to balance technology with human creativity, reminding us that while AI is a powerful tool, true innovation requires thinking beyond what has already been done, maximizing human potential.

Innovation at TCS

On the afternoon of August 19, Chetan Malhotra, Chief Scientist at TCS, spoke about the development and implementation of knowledge collaborative robots (cobots) designed to enhance organizational efficiency and decision-making. These cobots systematically capture and utilize human knowledge, helping organizations retain critical expertise even when key employees leave the company. Malhotra highlighted that the goal is to enable less experienced individuals to work as experts, transferring the knowledge of seasoned professionals to computer systems, thus ensuring the continuity and reliability of operations.

Malhotra also addressed the growing challenges of knowledge retention in sectors such as banking and manufacturing, where incomplete documentation often hampers the transition of tasks to new employees. To tackle these challenges, he described a process that involves the use of semantics, data and tool virtualization, and generative AI to extract and structure knowledge. Although generative AI is a powerful tool, Malhotra pointed out its limitations in understanding context and explaining its decisions. Therefore, he proposed a combined approach of semantic reasoning, knowledge engineering, and data contextualization, which offers a reliable way to capture and apply specialized knowledge, maintaining the operational efficiency of organizations.

 

How to Scale a Business

On August 20, Verne Harnish, a business growth expert with over 30 years of experience, conducted a masterclass on how to scale a business using the Four Decisions methodology, which covers people, strategy, execution, and cash. Harnish addressed the most critical issues in each of these areas and presented practical examples, highlighting the importance of innovation and strategic thinking to increase the value of companies. As the founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and Scaling Up, a global executive education company, Harnish emphasized the need to focus on innovations that address specific constraints, providing the necessary pricing power to stand out in competitive markets.

Harnish also explored the importance of organizational structure in promoting innovation. He stated that traditional hierarchical models are becoming obsolete in the face of agile, team-based structures that mimic the efficiency of natural systems like ant colonies or beehives. The expert argued that middle management, often a bottleneck in decision-making, is becoming increasingly unnecessary. “Beehives have no need for and do without middle management, and neither should we,” he asserted, advocating for leaner and more responsive teams capable of quickly adapting to market changes.
 

Innovation, Pricing, and Ecosystems

Verne Harnish then participated in a conversation with Bruno Rocha, country head of TCS in Brazil, Laura Costantini, co-founder of the venture capital manager Astella, and Charles Kirschbaum, professor of Insper. The panel was moderated by Nicholas Reade, co-founder of the consultancy RRBA Business Advisory. The participants discussed the complexities of innovation, pricing strategies, and the importance of ecosystems in business growth.

Harnish explained how the adoption of tiered pricing models, such as "Good, Better, Best Pricing," can significantly increase revenue, citing the example of Dell, which increased its turnover by 300% using this strategy to encourage consumers to opt for higher-priced options. Laura Costantini deepened the conversation by highlighting the importance of ecosystems to support innovation, especially in emerging markets. She emphasized that successful companies create ecosystems around their technological platforms, which increases stakeholder engagement and accelerates growth.

Charles Kirschbaum supplemented by underscoring the importance of including suppliers in the stakeholder ecosystem to drive innovation, exemplifying Dell's success in involving all parts of the value chain. Bruno Rocha highlighted the importance of focusing on a few key innovations instead of chasing numerous ideas simultaneously. He warned of the risks of basing decisions on the opinions of a single client, advocating for the use of collective wisdom, such as in crowdsourcing, which often results in better insights.

The discussion also addressed AI's impact on innovation ecosystems, with participants agreeing that AI will fundamentally transform business operations, just as the internet and mobile technologies have done in the past.

Culture of Innovation at Amazon

Rodrigo Madeira, Account Manager for EdTechs at Amazon Web Services (the cloud computing arm of Amazon), recounted in his talk the unique approach to innovation of the retail giant, which does not follow a “ready-made recipe” but is based on a culture deeply ingrained throughout the company. The central mission of Amazon, according to Madeira, is to be “the most customer-centric company on the planet,” which guides all its actions. Practical examples of this philosophy include the case of Amazon Prime, where proactive refunds are issued to customers who experience issues, without them having to request so.

Madeira also discussed Amazon's organizational structure, highlighting the role of small autonomous teams that drive agile innovation. These teams need to remain cohesive, so the company adopts the “two-pizza rule”—this amount of food must be sufficient to feed the entire team.

Madeira emphasized that failure is an essential part of the innovation process, citing the example of the Fire Phone, a smartphone with a 3D display without glasses, introduced in 2014 but discontinued. Although it was a commercial failure, the Fire Phone provided valuable lessons for the development of future products, such as the virtual assistant Alexa. For Madeira, “failure and invention are inseparable twins,” and learning from mistakes is crucial for the company's continuous evolution.

Reimagining the Future of Business

Kevin Benedict is a futurist with the Tata Consulting Services team and also a writer, speaker, and comedian. It was in a light-hearted tone that, in the last panel of the event, he showed what history can teach about the future. “The future is full of uncertainties and things that can either weaken humanity or enhance humanity,” said Benedict. “History reminds us that we are a stubborn species, deeply resistant to making profound changes in our behavior and habits, even when it is clear that we need to do so. But once we do, we can create things.”

Over the past one hundred years, for example, humanity has accumulated innovations in science, technology, geopolitics, business, economics, and society. Benedict said these are important facts because the future is not caused by one or two inventions but is the result of the convergence of several things happening at once that shape the world we live in. “When we look at historical patterns, we see that whenever there is human advancement, there is a corresponding correlation to the growth of knowledge, from the alphabet to language, writing, Gutenberg’s printing press, the internet, and now artificial intelligence,” he stated. He reminded us that history shows our mistakes and successes; therefore, the illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.