5 Of The Most Innovative Firms In North America

This week more than 125 business leaders and entrepreneurs gathered at 7 World Trade Centre in New York to celebrate the best of big business innovation and entrepreneurship. The Corporate Entrepreneur Awards recognizes game changing innovation and entrepreneurship from within large companies.

Corporate Entrepreneur Awards by Market Gravity

Via Flickr: 128489032@N08

The corporate entrepreneur is often an unsung hero in the business and the awards provide a much deserved platform for celebrating the hard work individuals and teams have done to deliver fundamental business and customer changes, often against all odds.

- Best New Product – A product innovation that has redefined its industry or category

- Best New Service – A service innovation that has redefined its industry or category

- Beyond the Core – An innovation that has taken a company into a new market or category

- Social Impact – An innovation that has had a positive social or environmental impact

- People’s Choice Award – which was voted for by attendees at the event

The winners in each category demonstrated innovative thinking in their approaches, along with the resilience and agility needed to make new things happen.

More than 40 multinational organizations submitted nominations for the awards across five categories. Details of the award winners are below:

Reebok

Best New Product – The Reebok Checklight

Seeking to address the issue of concussion in impact sports, the Reebok Checklight is an impact indicator worn on the head with or without a helmet. The checklight sensor continuously measures the impact the athlete experiences and provides a simple visual display when the device has received an impact above a certain threshold.

Judges' Comments:

"An impressive innovation that is particularly topical, given that the issue has been recently highlighted in the press."

"A great example of the application of technology to an issue that affects every American family. High profile, globally relevant and delivered at speed."

Thomson Reuters

Best New Service – Social Media Monitor – Thomson Reuters

The Eikon Social Media Monitor allows financial professionals to monitor sentiment for a stock on Twitter and StockTwits, helping customers gain unique insight and competitive advantage. Since launch in February 2014, it has consistently been hailed as bringing a new level of insight to financial professionals, and was recently named Best Specialist Product in the 2014 Technical Analyst awards.

Judges' Comments:

"A big step forward and a great use case for data analytics on customer sentiment to drive value"

"Thomson Reuters have honed in on the signal within the noise of social media, delivering unique insights on the stock market."

General Electric & Quirky

Beyond the Core – Quirky Partnership - GE

Quirky in collaboration with GE is a crowd-sourced innovation platform through which a community identifies and prioritizes product ideas based on GE patents, which are then developed, manufactured and distributed through stores like Best Buy and Target. The first products include a smart air conditioner, a connected home dashboard and an internet-connected power strip, all connected GE's smart-home platform.

Judges' Comments:

"A very unusual and a true entrepreneurial approach that has already resulted in a number of innovative new products."

"A leading example of harnessing the power of the crowd to develop ground-breaking new products that customers love."

Barclays

Social Impact – Extending Access to Financial Services – Barclays

Barclays, together with Grameen Foundation and CARE International UK, launched two mobile apps Ledger Link and Ekeys to help families in Uganda gain better access to financial services; helping them to increase and manage their incomes. In the pilot to-date, Barclays in Uganda has linked 270 savings groups, providing over 9,000 individuals with access to financial services, representing a portfolio of over $400,000 in savings.

Judges' Comments:

"This ties closely into top-line growth for Barclays whilst addressing a fundamental issue in Africa."

"Barclays have wielded their considerable assets and strengths, and empowered their staff to improve the lives of thousands of Ugandans."

ATB Financial

The People's Choice Award – ATB Financial Alberta BoostR

Voted for by attendees the vote was close but Canadian bank ATB Financial sneaked out L'Oreal and Moleskine with Livescribe to take the award this year.

ATB is a rewards based crowdfunding platform helping local businesses seek funding from local people, not their bank.

Dan Taylor, MD at Market Gravity commented: "ATB Financial was clearly a very popular choice, and caught the imagination of the attendees. The entry resonated with this group of big company innovators, both commercially and on a personal level."

For further information, contact: Iain Montgomery at Market Gravity. [e-mail]

About Market Gravity

Market Gravity is a specialist growth, innovation and new proposition design consultancy. We work with the world’s leading companies to design innovative new services in an entrepreneurial way. Uniquely, we combine commercial consulting, market research and design & prototyping skills under one roof.

For more information visit: www.marketgravity.com