Innovation through strategic execution
In a workshop for members of the Sustainable Soy in Cerrado Program, Cargill's Digital Innovation and Strategy Advisor charted the stages for implementing an initiative, from the original idea to a full-scale solution.
How can your innovation affect the sustainable soy supply chain? What paradigm shift does it offer the market? How can you scale it up to help transform the agribusiness ecosystem? These were a few of the themes around which startups in the Sustainable Soy in Cerrado Program participated in a workshop on innovation on November 10, at the AgTech Garage headquarters. Facilitated by João Carvalho, Cargill's Digital Innovation and Strategy Advisor, the workshop raised several key issues for entrepreneurs aiming to move their projects from the drawing board to the market. The seven participating startups – Agrorobotica, AgTrace, Brain Ag, BrCarbon, Forestmatic, Plantem and Um grau e meio – are responsible for implementing three solutions, which are now going through the process of validating hypotheses and generating both value and impacts.
Sustainable Soy from the Cerrado Program: workshop on innovation at AgTech Garage.
"It's not easy to innovate. In the absence of ready-made solutions, we have to make it happen," says João Carvalho. To build its path to success, a startup must take steps to validate the market, beginning with an understanding of what its customers value, identifying their main pains, and where to start. With this initial roadmap in hand, it is time to pinpoint problems and priorities, including weak points to be overcome, in order to transform the business chain. At this stage, startups can begin doing experiments and designing their metrics for success, to be validated in terms of customers, quantifiable costs for the solution, and impacts on the ecosystem. This is the right time, therefore, to look to the market for new opportunities to scale up the business.
From the initial idea to the market solution, it is important not to lose sight of the need to make a difference in the customer's decision to choose your service, and to generate changes in the agribusiness ecosystem. The projects' success will depend on the clarity of its desired outcomes: more specific solutions, with quantifiable results and impacts on the business chain, will come out ahead when competing for a place in the market. "Responsible socio-environmental solutions can go beyond making the soy supply chain more sustainable, to actually open new markets. In today's world, socio-environmental performance is a great business opportunity," says the Land Innovation Fund's director, Carlos E. Quintela.
The "Sustainable Soy from the Cerrado" Program grew out of a partnership between the innovation hub AgTech Garage and the Land Innovation Fund, with strategic support from Embrapii. It draws startups’ cutting-edge research and development closer to the production of science in universities, to support innovative projects for a deforestation-free soy supply chain. Designed to be implemented through four cycles, the program has R$2.2 million in initial funding to support startups, with the possibility of increasing revenue by bringing in new partners interested in supporting this innovation ecosystem for agribusiness.
Sustainable Soy from the Cerrado Program: workshop on innovation at AgTech Garage.
Currently, in addition to the seven startups who attended the workshop and will receive financial support for their solutions, the companies SafeTrace, Quiron and Scicrop are also part of the Program. With proposals ranging from environmental monitoring to soil treatment, ecological restoration, artificial intelligence, big data solutions, carbon quantification and traceability in the soybean chain, the ten startups selected for the first two cycles of the Sustainable Soy in Cerrado Program all seek to mitigate some of the biggest obstacles to sustainability. The third and fourth cycles will open next year, allowing the entry of new companies.