Summary
Thank you everyone for coming to the opening of the Vancouver Corporate Innovation Group (VCIG). We had a wonderful evening of interacting and networking with 21 different Vancouver intrepreneurs. A special thanks to Ken Bell from BDO for offering the door prize and The Profile for hosting us!
Here are the highlights of the event:
It seems that the main innovation challenge for most participants is the organizational mindset (which is in line with what we observe in the State of Global Innovation by Imaginatik)
Most of the innovation challenges identified in this evening comes from initiatives.
It is very difficult to educate high levels executives to accept innovation.
According to the quick survey we conducted during the session, the top four barriers to innovating within organizations are:
Organizational Culture and Mindset
Poor Executive Support
Insufficient Resources
Inadequate Innovation Skills
WHO CAME?
Among the participants who came this evening, we have individuals from a variety of industries and backgrounds representing the following organizations.
1QBit
Analyticy Technologies
BDO
Barbarossa Investment & Advisory
Blue Marble Labs
Bye Bye Mortgage
Creatific
Creativity at Work
Innovate BC
Insight Out Consulting
Invoke Digital
Ledcor
Mitacs
Moneris Solution
PH1
PNC Consulting
REITIUM Blockchain Technologies
TELUS
Results
From this evening’s activity, we’ve learned that organizational culture or mindset and insufficient resources represent the two most significant innovation challenges in Vancouver.
Download the presentation here.

Attendees built a dashboard mapping some of the most common innovation challenges intrapreneurs see at their organization.
DIRECTLY FROM THE PARTICIPANTS
Insufficient resources
Red tape and regulation
Government restrictions
More government help needed
Lack of incentives for innovation
Insufficient or lack of resources for innovation
Lack of follow through
Tackling definitive roles
Lack of follow through
Lack of accountability
Implementing and getting buy-in from executives
Deploy and run
Inadequate innovation skills
Lack of clearly defined roles
Too many siloed companies competing with one another rather than collaborating
Lack of skills in subject
Narrow vision
Resilience of adopting new ideas
Canada’s economy is resource focused
Lacking tools for innovation
Jumping to the end instead of going through the process
Innovation objectives not clear
Identify the R.O.I.
Are you asking the right questions?
Constructive feedback process doesn’t exist; not aware of the best areas for R&D
Organization and role clarity
No use case ahead of its time; no clear innovation objective
Poor executive support
Reorganization hell
Red tape to set decision made
Hierarchical barriers to collaboration
Lack of commitment
Poor executive support with new initiatives
Super conservative mindset; must be proven to be valued
Can’t always understand objectives; too focused on implementing outcomes
No clear corporate objective
Indoctrination towards control in large organizations
Buy vs innovate in house
Leadership training for intrapreneurs
Organization culture or mindset
Hardcore honesty
Fear of the unknown
Reliance on structure over leadership when introducing initiatives
Fear of failure implies collision with performance appraisals
Wrong metrics
Too narrow minded
Seeing beyond their own bubble of reality
Lack of trust
Lack of leadership training for intrapreneurs
Lack of interest
Lack of urgency
Hard to change and lack of desire to change
Laid back culture
Misaligned incentives
Too many decision makers (red tape)
Risk averse and resource economy mindset
Challenges accessing customers (relationship owners risk averse) or incentives misaligned
Different risk profiles between product and portfolio managers
Lack of time and focus
Opportunity overload: too much of the same thing out there
No clear objective
Lack of focus and time
What’s Next?
So where do we go from here?
From the feedback and inputs that we’ve collected, we’ll start planning a series of events focusing on these themes for 2019 and beyond.
Also, we’re always open for community partners or sponsors to support VCIG. If you’re interested in becoming one, feel free to reach out to us at vcig@envisioninglabs.com.
Stay tuned for the next VCIG event!