Exponentially worked with Caltex Australia as part of an accelerator facilitated by Slingshot, which sought to match corporates with relevant start-ups in order to build innovative and market-changing technologies. Exponentially ran pretotyping and rapid experimentation workshops in order to transform these companies’ approach to innovation, taking the emphasis away from building ideas and instead focussing on testing and validating ideas before investing in them.
“Our expectation for the Spark accelerator program was to help embed a culture of innovation within Caltex and to ensure our customers, shareholders and employees are part of that journey,” says Beatrice Bowen, Head of New Business and Innovation at Caltex Australia. When designing and running experiments, the customer always needs to be front-of-mind. Experiments are designed in order to gauge whether or not a customer is genuinely interested in a product or service, so that the company can make informed decisions based on reliable data about which ideas to develop.
“Caltex has a long history of adapting to changing consumer needs,” says Beatrice. “Caltex Spark continues this journey to ensure we cast a wide net for ideas.” Exponentially’s pretotyping and rapid experimentation workshops played an important role in ensuring that the ideas that moved forward into further development were highly successful, because they had been tested and validated. This is evidenced by Caltex’s 75% success rate across the Caltex Spark cohort both in customer deals, potential investments and multiple trials. Beatrice says, “We’re really proud of the results we generated… [and] we’re keen to keep the momentum.”