arche+ innovation hub

We help to embed the mindset of an innovator in a broad audience and develop a culture in which every contribution is taken into account. Profitability is not the primary goal of our Innovation Hub - quite the opposite. It's about breaking new ground, investing and trying out new things. The focus is on experimentation and a culture of error. With the Innovation Hub, we are creating a place for tech talent, we are developing new business models that, when they are mature, will be brought to market by our own companies or hub partners. Our goal with the innovation hub is not the obvious return, such as the quantification of sales figures, but the development of expertise. Short-term amortization of the costs incurred is not our motivation for setting up our innovation hub. Our arche+ innovation hub is designed for the long term and should be seen as an investment in the future. 

As an internationally oriented innovation hub, we provide strong impetus in our target market. The resulting market activation not only strengthens us, but also our hub partners themselves as key market players in our hub's target market. The focus of our arche+ Innovation Hub is both international and national. One focus of our Innovation Hub is on connecting the target market with the topics of digitalization and high-tech, which can give rise to new disruptive business approaches that change entire markets or even create new ones. We make an important contribution to advancing important socio-political and economic goals.

We leverage unlimited information about innovation. We tap into a global open innovation network with endless growth opportunities and collaborate with key stakeholders to manage an intelligent deal flow process involving start-ups, established companies, experts, universities, partners and more.

• We find and use solutions that help and generate excellent returns for our companies.
• We foster a culture of innovation and intrapreneurship in our companies.
• We manage an effective deal flow process that involves our companies, partners and other hubs.
• We keep an eye on our pipeline and measure our efforts using KPIs.

When it comes to forward-looking developments, innovation hubs like us are particularly important. We are the innovation engine that changes markets or even creates new ones. 

• We bring "fresh minds" into the ecosystem. We bring in new ideas and think the supposedly impossible.
• As entrepreneurs, we see a problem as an incentive to develop many approaches and attempts at solutions over a longer period of time. We want many teams to search for solutions simultaneously, efficiently and persistently.
• We contribute to the commercialization of research and development from universities, research facilities, institutes and companies.
• We put companies under pressure to innovate, we offer open innovation.
• As an innovation hub, we attract investments to the markets.
• We connect markets, especially via our digital platforms.

Promoting our Innovation Hub and an environment in which new companies and solutions can develop well is a prerequisite for sustainable innovation. Established companies should not see us as potential competition, but as an opportunity. After all, there is potential for new, forward-looking business areas in working with us. As an arche+ innovation hub, we foster a culture of collaboration to collect, manage and implement effective ideas that create sustainable added value for the environment, organizations, companies, industries and people. We offer companies, profit and non-profit organizations in our target market the opportunity to win us over with the help of the Open Innovation Blueprint.

We believe that the path to innovation is not a solo effort, but that it is precisely through cooperation with various like-minded players that a transformative force unfolds (Collective Impact). Many initiatives, companies or organizations isolate themselves from the outside world, which sooner or later becomes a disadvantage and effectively pushes them to the sidelines. With our Open Innovation Network, we are actively shaping and promoting an innovation ecosystem. Initiatives, organizations and companies should seize this opportunity.

Together with our innovation partners, we plan innovation formats, specialist events and lighthouse events. Our arche+ innovation hub not only enables our hub partners to make direct contact with start-ups or established companies, but also with all the players in our open innovation network. This results in best practice sharing as well as new business and cooperation opportunities. Our own companies and partners participate in corresponding hub activities such as matchmaking events and startup development. As a result, we save costs, receive more impetus for innovation, achieve a greater impact through multipliers in our hub network and increase our success through cooperation with like-minded partners.

We are convinced that goals can be achieved better together, so that the different effects reinforce each other and synergies are created. Our passion is open innovation, i.e. as an innovation hub, we open up our innovation process to the outside world so that the outside world can benefit from it. The diverse involvement of a wide range of outsiders increases the innovation potential in our Innovation Hub. The Open Innovation blueprint can be divided into three core processes:

1. The outside-in process is the integration of external knowledge into the innovation process. The know-how of suppliers, customers and external partners (e.g. universities, research and development institutions, start-ups, companies) should be used to increase the quality and speed of the innovation process.
2. The inside-out process is the externalization of internal knowledge. We use this process in our companies, for example, to receive license fees for patents or innovations that we do not use for our operational business. A non-monetary approach makes it possible to act as a "giver" and act as a "taker" in return.
3. The coupled process is a hybrid of the outside-in process and the inside-out process. The coupled process focuses on the creation of standards and the establishment and development of markets.

Open innovation can mean, for example, involving customers and/or partners in the development process via crowdsourcing, but also outsourcing innovations via spin-offs or even supporting an entire ecosystem via an open innovation hub like ours.

• We generate new revenue streams through crowdsourcing and the commercialization of groundbreaking new products and services.
• We solve strategic business dilemmas, customer problems and market challenges.

As an arche+ innovation hub, we operate differently to a department within a company. We deliberately open up our innovation processes to everyone in our target market, thereby increasing the innovation potential for everyone involved. We therefore act as a neutral point of contact for all players in an industry or technology sector who are interested in open innovation. All players can internalize external knowledge or externalize internal knowledge with us, find suitable cooperation partners for their own innovation projects or become cooperation partners themselves for initiatives of other market participants.

Our neutral position enables us to interact with all players in an industry or technology sector (our hub's target market). We bring them together, promote the exchange of ideas and knowledge and support the initiation of new innovation or start-up projects. We act as a promoter of the innovative and economic power of an existing or completely new industry or technology sector that is still in the market ramp-up phase. In addition, we promote the respective economic region in which our hub locations are located, e.g. through events, congresses, trade fairs, funding projects, the establishment of new start-ups and the strengthening of local companies.

Big data/AI, Internet of Things, blockchain, virtual/augmented reality, digital twins, robotics - these are just a few examples of current technology trends that have been changing markets and business areas for several years. Technological innovations converge on our integrated hardware and software platforms and, in combination, lead to exponential changes. In the long term, they will completely and sustainably change our world. This "exponential innovation" represents a challenge for all market participants. In order to meet this challenge in the best possible way as a company, municipality or country, we at the arche+ innovation hub focus on understanding and managing ecosystems and collaborations. After all, the best solutions for the challenges of tomorrow's market upheavals can only be created if all players combine their specific innovation approaches and expertise.

As an arche+ innovation hub, we constantly have our finger on the pulse. We are building a collaborative trend knowledge base to identify innovations that can have an exponential impact on our companies' bottom line.

• We identify disruptive factors in society and in the various sectors and use this knowledge to drive innovation in a targeted manner.
• We are developing a comprehensive knowledge database in which we can collaborate with all those interested in trends.
• We ensure and facilitate collaboration with relevant experts and stakeholders.

The Open Innovation Blueprint offers market participants the opportunity to change their perspective on the product, save costs and time, adapt to the market and start afresh:

• Better time-to-market | The development and delivery of new products or services through innovation ideas is accelerated. Through our Open Innovation Network, user priorities for the process, product or service are incorporated as accurately as possible.
• Better cost-to-market | The costs for in-house research and development are reduced through the integration of external research and development results through to the use of open source. Marketing costs are also reduced by presenting new products or services in the open innovation network.
• Better fit-to-market | The market acceptance of a product or service among users and buyers is increased because as much needs information as possible is used from the open innovation network.
• Better new-to-market | New business areas are identified and developed more quickly because innovation ideas for new products or services and trend information about new customer needs and new market segments come from the Open Innovation network.

As an arche+ innovation hub, we also offer other advantages:

• Better early warning system | Companies that cooperate with us receive innovation signals from our Open Innovation Network earlier, indicating disruption potential for their own industry and company. This enables companies to prepare for disruptive business risks at an early stage.
• Better resilience management | Through our Innovation Hub, partner companies register signals at an early stage that indicate technologically or entrepreneurially skillful reactions to unexpected environmental or market developments (e.g. crises, supply chain disruptions). This enables the partner company to plan its own skillful response to changing market conditions in the best possible way.

Our goal as an arche+ innovation hub is to drive forward new developments by combining internal and external expertise. The resulting products and business areas are generally more successful, sustainable and cost-effective than those from traditional product development. Ecosystems are crucial to the challenge of exponential innovation. The nucleus of such ecosystems are innovation hubs with an open innovation network like ours.

We are developing our own innovation cockpit. We ensure that our innovations have an impact by keeping an eye on our entire innovation portfolio and measuring the value it delivers over time.

• We bridge the gap between inspiration and innovation by turning our solutions into real projects.
• We design and execute an efficient POC or commercialization process that enables easy collaboration between teams and stakeholders.
• We produce comprehensive reports to analyze the impact and performance of our portfolio over time.

We always strive for maximum potential. We integrate an optimized process to continuously discover opportunities for improvement and operational excellence for our innovations. We search millions of data points for solutions, technologies, innovations, patents and much more to serve humanity. We identify and collect data that delivers amazing results and solutions for companies, organizations, groups and individuals. We harness the collective knowledge of the crowd (swarm intelligence) to solve society's biggest challenges and capitalize on its greatest opportunities.

• We generate a continuous ROI through the sustainable optimization of our products, services and processes.
• We create incentives for a cross-departmental process to adopt best practices and track their impact.
• We save time and resources by using our AI-supported software to evaluate and implement improvements.