More than 20 innovation champions have completed the innovation champion course at  South East Water UK        The...

Published on by

More than 20 innovation champions have completed the innovation champion course at  South East Water UK        The course is designed to embed a culture of innovation within the day-to-day operations of the company, providing key staff members with the knowledge, tools and expertise required to drive forward new and exciting ideas which staff from across the business generate.   The participants, who volunteered to join the community from across the business, teamed up to deliver multi-departmental initiatives as part of the certified and accredited programme.  Initiatives were diverse and ranged from enhancing site recycling rates to development of new systems and technologies.  The teams applied methods and processes learnt throughout the nine sessions to better define challenges, seek sponsorship, research and test assumptions, co-design and validate solutions with colleagues, stakeholders and the supply chain.  Mary Sabalis, Head of Business Systems at South East Water said:“It was fantastic to see how much had been achieved in such a short amount of time.  There was great consistency in how the teams had approached the diverse issues and opportunities.”  Paul Sutherland, Managing Director of +ADD Strategy, said:“The new methods and tools the teams used demonstrated the value of design thinking. We consider it is essential to enable this capacity in complex businesses such as water companies who are focussed on meeting challenging performance targets.”  Some of the projects developed during the programme offered substantial efficiencies, enhanced customer value and new revenues to the business and are set to be implemented with the support of management.  Tertius Rust, Innovation Lead at South East Water said: “This is one of several initiatives we are delivering to build agile and design led innovation within the business. We will be delivering a range of innovation campaigns both internally and with the supply chain community this year.”  +ADD Strategy is retained as an innovation partner for South East Water and is delivering a diverse range of initiatives supporting innovation strategy, culture, systems, processes and practical programme delivery.  Contact colin@addstrategy.co.uk or call 0044 191 for more information about these accredited and certified programmes. 

Taxonomy