Freshworks IPO and Co-Innovation — Abhijit Bhaduri

Freshworks has gone from being a tech start up to a $10 billion IPO. It has created 500 people the new crorepatis. Seventy of these are people under 30. Freshworks is a co-innovation partner for each one of its customers.

With business models being in a state of flux, the businesses have no choice but to become digital. That means breaking apart the current model and simplifying the customer’s experience. Simplification adds speed. It allows the business to be agile. That is what co-innovation looks like.

Even traditional competitors like BMW and Daimler, actually set up a joint venture company to co-innovate. Business problems have become too complex to be solved by any one business.

Digital transformation is magical

Can a pizza delivery company become a poster child for digital transformation? CEO Patrick Doyle famously said that Domino’s went from “a pizza company that sold online” to “an e-commerce company that sells pizza.” That journey has been driven by customer experience and growth of digital capabilities of the firm. Their share price jumped from $12 to over $380. That makes their performance stronger over the same period than Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.

What is the biggest hurdle for companies when they want to transform, I asked Keith Schwartz, the co-founder of Bounteous. They partnered Domino’s in their co-innovation journey. Bounteous made it possible for Dominos customers to order through traditional channels such as phone, web, and apps. Then they built an additional 11 different “Anyware” channels; including Alexa, Slack, or even a customer’s car.

Why talent matters

Very few companies can attract the talent necessary to drive digital transformation. Without that it is impossible to establish category leadership. The top digital talent is pursued not only by all the peer companies in the sector, but they are also pursued by every company in every sector. From the startup to the Market Shaper, everyone needs to build the team needed to drive digital transformation.

The rules of the game have changed when it comes to talent. The Freshworks site lays out their approach to hiring and managing talent. Finding the right talent is hard and time consuming. They have showed that decacorns are built one hire at a time.

Written for Times of India on 23rd Sep 2021 <read that version>

I spoke to Keith Schwartz the CEO of Bounteous and the author of the Co-Innovation Manifesto. Here is the video of the podcast