Beyond the moon… and further

Living Tomorrow and BDO share the same innovation spirit

‘The country that controls the energy source that keeps the technological civilisation running will control the earth.’ From: 'China has returned helium-3 from the moon, opening door to future technology’, Mark R. Whittington, September 2022, The Hill. A powerful statement that holds up even at micro level. After all, a company that breathes and nurtures innovation ensures its growth, competitiveness, and raison d’être. “Easier said than done,” say four innovation gurus from Living Tomorrow and BDO. “But for those who open their eyes, the possibilities extend far beyond the moon.”

Sitting around the table:

Yin Oei (CEO of Living Tomorrow Group)
Thanks to her sportsmanship and strategic approach, in 2008 Yin won ‘Expedition Robinson’, the reality programme in which participants have to survive on an uninhabited island. “Even in the most basic living environment, a person looks for ways to do things ‘better and more efficiently’. Instead of hunting for crabs every morning, we dug a pot in the sand in which the crabs trapped themselves. That’s pure innovation.”

Frank Beliën (Founder and Chairman of Living Tomorrow)
According to Frank, the moon could become the Persian Gulf of the mid-21st century. Its vast reserves of helium-3 are already giving a new boost to the space race among the economic superpowers. “On Earth, it is an extremely rare resource, but indispensable for making nuclear fusion possible. Nuclear fusion, without emissions of radioactive neutrons, is the energy source of the future. Ten space shuttles full of helium-3 would provide clean fusion energy for the entire world for a year.”

Joachim De Vos (Co-chair Living Tomorrow and Professor of Scenario Planning at UGent)
Author of ‘Why innovation fails’, Joachim teaches why innovation is important and reveals common pitfalls in an innovation process and how to get around them. “When I had the opportunity to show Bill Gates around Living Tomorrow’s first ‘House of the Future’ in 1995, he stressed the importance of immersing people in the tangible possibilities of the future so that they can prepare themselves and their environment for that future.”  

Walter Vanherle (Partner BDO Belgium, Digital & Innovation)
You can certainly call Walter a technology enthusiast: his office is brimming with high-tech discoveries, from a futuristic food printer to an archaeological iPhone. His latest interest? ‘Digital twins’. “A digital twin is a digital copy of the real world in which we can model behaviour and performance and experiment with it to our heart’s content. Digital twins make innovation more cost-effective and, above all, less risky.”

In a world where almost everything is possible, does innovation start primarily from necessity?

Joachim: “Companies will never stop their quest for greater efficiency and being better. It started with enhancing human productivity, followed by the introduction of machines – and today, we have the digitalisation of the tasks performed by both people and machines. Digitalisation is like a river that flows incessantly, optimising or rethinking existing processes. In order to innovate efficiently and profitably, you need insight into what is coming your way over the next 5 to 10 years and what will become possible. Only those who look at that future in the right way can also think about what needs to be done today to still be relevant as a business tomorrow and thereafter.”

Frank: “A Harvard study found that organisations focus mainly on financial reporting, legal & compliance, and day-to-day operations. Only a fraction of their attention goes to strategy and the future. When things go wrong, the cause usually lies in a misjudgement of the future. You can avoid that by developing scenarios – whereby you look at which elements influence the future of your organisation and how they might change in the future. Of course, that’s not an exact science, but it strengthens your resilience. No one can predict the future, but that does not mean you cannot prepare yourself for it.”

Walter: “To stimulate our innovative capacity and internal entrepreneurship, BDO created an environment called Dragons’ Den, in which employees can openly, and without reservation, present their innovation ideas (also read the article ‘Dragons’ Den gives BDO wings’). Each idea is tested by an independent ‘innovation board’ for its feasibility and potential to create value. For BDO and/or for clients. That is our ‘inside-out’ approach to innovation. At the same time, all our antennae are tuned to capture innovative insights, knowledge and know-how from the outside world, and thus to learn and co-create day-in day-out. That’s our ‘outside-in’ approach, of which the partnership with Living Tomorrow and our partner network are the textbook example and showcase.”

Yin: “Every change encounters resistance. That’s inherent in human nature. But by allowing innovation to grow from within the people themselves - which is BDO’s goal with Dragons’ Den - you reduce this resistance to a minimum. It’s not about innovation in itself, but about the difference that we can make together by combining our forces. That’s also the essence of Living Tomorrow.”

Joachim: “What we are currently experiencing is not an era of change, but a change of era, in which the speed of change is exponential. This acceleration is underpinned by the exponential growth of processing power – which is currently doubling every 18 months. At the same time, hyper-specialisation is increasing. Previously, you could have sufficient knowledge of everything to steer the change yourself. Today…”

… is the age of linear, one-dimensional innovation over?

Joachim: “Today, you have no choice but to work with the various specialists in all the domains that make innovation possible. This makes innovation particularly complex, which is why it is still too often seen as a threat rather than an opportunity.”

Walter: “Hence, the need for an ecosystem such as Living Tomorrow’s Innovation Campus. Thanks to our partnership, BDO is strengthening its market position as an innovative player and ‘business challenger’, in which we’re striving for future-proof value creation (read insert ‘The new S-curve of value creation’) for ourselves and for our clients. In other words: we unite knowledge with ability.”

Yin: “Which is not always obvious. Very creative organisations sometimes get so carried away in their drive to innovate that they overshoot their own strategic goals. Or they fail to successfully market their innovation.”  

Walter: “At BDO, we rely on what we call the banana model. The back of the banana represents the strategic line – while within the curve, all operational actions are set out that are as closely aligned as possible to the strategy to be followed. With the ‘horizon planning’, we explore the impact of the trends on the client’s business, and we develop possible scenarios for how the company can evolve. This is how we turn the threat posed by the tsunami of possibilities into tangible and feasible opportunities.”

“What we are experiencing today is not an era of change, but a change of era.”
Joachim De VosCo-chair of Living Tomorrow
“We unite knowledge with ability. We transform what we learn about the future into practical, feasible actions.”
Walter Vanherle Partner BDO Belgium, Digital & Innovation
‘What you see is what you get?’

Frank: “If you don’t make innovations tangible, then people struggle to understand them and you get resistance. When our first ‘House of the Future’ opened in 1995, the majority of visitors said they would never want a mobile phone. At that time, they associated mobile phones with work. We had to make it clear that mobile phones in the future would mean a lot more than just work. That’s why showing innovations – and demonstrating what they can potentially lead to – is so important. For businesses too.”

Walter: “For BDO, the collaboration with Living Tomorrow is also a significant lever for our employer branding. In the current ‘war for talent’, it’s important to ‘prove’ that you are forward-looking and that you are open to ideas and technology that will only take shape in the future.”

Frank: “By the way, the pressing and growing talent shortage can be partly addressed thanks to innovation. Attracting foreign talent is an option, but that’s becoming less socially accepted in certain parts of Europe. Artificial intelligence can help, for example, to detect available but untapped talent in the company and deploy it more effectively.”

Is the convergence of digitalisation, automation and wide-open data flows not making innovation easier?

Yin: “Innovation in 2023 is a particularly complex story, because you have to embrace so many different technologies simultaneously. This is compounded by the recent necessity to do so in a sustainable manner if you don’t want your company to be pushed out of the market. This shift to sustainable entrepreneurship is rapidly becoming irreversible. Until a few years ago, the Top 10 of the Fortune 500 was dominated by American tech companies. In 2023, supermarket chain Walmart is number one, thanks in part to its commitment to make its entire value chain carbon neutral. In addition to the pursuit of sustainability, other elements weigh on innovation capacity, such as cybersecurity and the increasing compliance requirements imposed by governments. A company that wants to remain agile in the future has to keep an eye on all these trends and align them with its ‘purpose’.”

Joachim: “Regulation and compliance are necessary, because every innovation can be applied for both good and bad. Think of genetic engineering, nuclear energy, etc. The same applies to AI and data sharing. Rules are essential because you cannot rely blindly on the ethics of every user. After all, today’s technology is accessible to every individual - unlike, for example, nuclear energy. That makes the risk of abuse much greater. Fortunately, in Europe, we are well aware of this – and we’re even playing a pioneering role in terms of regulation.”

Frank: “A regulatory framework also inhibits innovation. And that can be quite frustrating when you see that certain innovations are gaining traction much more quickly in other parts of the world. Our regulations are moving too slowly today. At the same time, Europe needs to become much stronger and less dependent on the rest of the world. For example, why import large volumes of rare, but vital, lithium if we can mine it ourselves in a sustainable way, as is already happening in Sweden? By 2030, Europe wants to mine 10% of its own raw materials and recycle 40%. These are themes that our companies must focus on, with government support.”

Joachim: “Above all, the precautionary principle weighs too heavily on our European regulations and decision-making. Something may only be applied when it has been proven to be 100% safe, healthy, etc. If Vesalius had not practised on corpses in the 16th century - which was not legally permitted - medicine would still be in its infancy today. So, we need ‘test beds’ where we can test groundbreaking technology in a proper legal framework in larger groups.” 

Walter: “Over-regulation or ‘gold-plating’ (being even stricter than is necessary) does not even give you the chance to test innovations. In Belgium, for example, you may only experiment with drones above the Antwerp port area; elsewhere, it’s considered unsafe. But it takes a certain degree of freedom to be able to experiment and learn how to fly safely with drones. In short, we need contemporary regulation that breaks away from old concepts and starts out from new models.”

“You need a dream in order to be able to innovate.” - Yin Oei
Yin OeiCEO of Living Tomorrow Group
“No one can predict the future, but you can prepare for it.”
Frank BeliënFounder & Chairman of Living Tomorrow
We often hear: it takes too long before our investment in innovation pays off.

Joachim: “Major causes are the lack of a structured approach or an unprepared organisation – at all levels, in all areas. Employees hardly get the time or freedom to think creatively in a structural manner – budgets are limited, skills are lacking, and support from top management and the team is small. In short, there’s no real innovation culture.”

Yin: “By nature, CEOs regard innovation as an expense item. Or, they do not dare – or are unable – to look beyond the horizon. How many companies are occupied with the metaverse today? You need a dream in order to be able to innovate. Just look at what was possible in the Star Trek science fiction series in the 1960s that has become a reality today: mobile communication, food printing, holodeck, touch screens, etc. Companies need a tangible dream like that.”

Walter: “BDO is cultivating this dream with its innovation workshops in the BDO InnovationLab on the Living Tomorrow campus.”

No dream without pitfalls?

Walter: “Doing your homework and conducting a thorough market analysis beforehand is crucial for your chances of success. Otherwise, you can end up introducing an innovative product to the market that nobody is waiting for. Worse, it might already exist elsewhere in the world. Or you launch a service that is not socially accepted, because the consumer or the market are not yet ready for it, or unions or activists are applying the brakes.”

Frank: “Finally, remember that you have to get your innovations out there. What good is an innovation if you don’t bring it to potential partners or clients. How else do you make them better? This has always been a crucial factor for Living Tomorrow too. Otherwise, we would never have been able to gather so many partners to allow our innovation garden to flourish.”  

The new S-curve of value creation

The blue S-curve on the figure shows a company’s logical growth in value. Until recently, this growth was mainly driven by people who were constantly looking for more cost-effective techniques and solutions to strengthen growth and value creation. For example, through standardisation, off-shoring, lean process management, technological improvements, modular and re-usable software development (DevOps), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), ‘Intelligent Document Processing’ (IDP), process mining (process-related data analysis to map out invisible processes), and so on. By using these techniques, companies were able to save 20% - 30% on costs or increase productivity, and thus do 5% - 10% better year after year.


With the advent of machine learning techniques, in combination with human adjustment, generative AI experienced a breakthrough that took shape with GPT-4 and soon GPT-5. As a result, value creation in the IT and services sectors will receive a strong boost. For example, an on-shore call centre linked a GPT-4 bot to its call-handling processes and will be able to halve its workforce within a few months.

The difference with the old S-curve is that multiple roles in companies can now be supported by the use of these new forms of digital assistants (text, video, music generation), or that roles can even be replaced completely as soon as the technology is fully integrated into the solution (also read the article ‘New technologies: smart experimentation is the message’). 

In short, within an AI-driven business, productivity may rise by an additional 30% - 70%, according to Phil Fersht, Founder and Principal Consultant at renowned firm Horses for Sources (HFS).

S-curve

BDO InnovationLab-workshop

The need for more future-oriented thinking is growing rapidly among Belgian companies. This is evident from the success of the second edition of ‘Vision 2030’, which BDO organised together with TomorrowLab at the Living Tomorrow Innovation Campus. As a follow-up, BDO is organising workshops in its InnovationLab. Experts from BDO and TomorrowLab will work together with you and your management team to translate insights into strategic objectives and feasible actions tailored for your organisation.

Frank doesn’t beat around the bush: “The innovation spirit at BDO is so strong that it triggers and activates even us, Living Tomorrow, to take the innovation capacity of our ecosystem to an even higher level.”

Read the flyer ‘InnovationLab@Living Tomorrow’.

Invention vs. innovation

An invention is not innovation, and vice versa. An invention is something new. For example, the invention of a new material, such as plastic. An invention that is successfully adopted and brought to the market is called an innovation. In other words, innovation is a process and, in principle, cannot be patented. Cupboards in labs are full of inventions, but only a handful ever lead to innovation. The combination of five innovations can look like an invention, but it is actually a super innovation and extremely difficult to protect.

Ready to work on your plan for the future?

Would you welcome a no-obligation discussion about an innovation workshop for your organisation or company?  
Contact us via the experts above on the right attached to this article.

Watch the Vision 2030 aftermovie or read the article “Inspiration is the beginning of innovation – ‘Vision 2030’ makes the future tangible”.