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The CAP Group, through CAP Mining made an alliance with Fundación Chile to boost the production processes of its mining area. This agreement, which is included in the company’s strategy of migrating towards a comprehensive technological and digital transformation, contemplates a joint effort to identify opportunities for the introduction of disruptive innovation in CAP’s facilities and processes. In this interview, Maurizio Moschini, business development leader at ChileGlobal Ventures, shares more details about this alliance.
What is this alliance with CAP Mining about?
The CAP Group, through CAP Mining and its Innovation Space, is strengthening its relationship with startups to improve its production processes. To achieve this, the CAP Group has partnered with Fundación Chile, through ChileGlobal Ventures (its venture capital area), also with the support of Expande, an area that seeks to boost innovation in strategic sectors of the country such as mining.
We are very happy to be able to support a company as important as CAP in its incursion into the world of open innovation and, through this alliance, we want to bring all the disruptive talent from startups to transform CAP’s mining processes and add innovation to the mining of the future.
In general terms, what is understood as “disruptive innovation”?
Disruptive innovation is understood as any new process or technology that generates a radical change in the way of doing things in the country’s industries. This disruptive change has allowed startups and companies to grow exponentially in the short and medium term. An example is the case of Uber, which is changing the way we understand private inter-city transport, allowing technology to make personal transfer services much closer and more accessible.
These innovative solutions are accessible to all companies in every sector, and such is the case with mining. The CAP group has seen this opportunity and that is why they decided to make an alliance with us. This will allow not only to boost the mining industry, but also to modernise the organisational culture with the introduction of new ways of carrying out productive processes, provided by startups with cutting-edge technologies (Big Data, AI, IoT, among others), in order to solve its great challenges.
How will the joint work be developed to introduce these technologies at CAP?
One of the initial actions consists of a selection process to bring talent from Chilean startups and the world to solve two major challenges that we have identified with CAP Group at Planta Magnetita: How do we improve predictive maintenance? And, how do we improve the milling process?
In order to select the best startups we will not only analyse your value proposition through a presentation or form, but we will also test it on the ground to evaluate whether they are capable of being strategic suppliers of the CAP Group.
This call will aim to generate a commercial agreement with the selected startup to categorise it as a strategic partner, which is a great step for winning projects. One of the main challenges that startups face when entering the market is not having clients to validate their solution, as a result of high competitiveness. This is a great opportunity for disruptive businesses that can deliver a solution to the challenges posed, since they would start in the market with a great ally that can support them in their future growth.
Why is it important for national mining to consider the incorporation of disruptive technologies?
At ChileGlobal Ventures we believe that companies are a fundamental pillar for the development of a virtuous ecosystem that can support the growth of startups. We also believe that companies will benefit from supporting and connecting with startups, since they will not only incorporate new sources of innovation, but they will also be able to obtain a value proposition to strengthen their corporate strategy.
On that line, what barriers exist for the incorporation of these technologies?
The biggest barrier that exists is related to how effective radical collaboration is nowadays. Based on our experience at Fundación Chile, it is usually at this point where collaboration agreements between startups and companies fail, and it is necessary to act as neutral entity between both actors to generate the greatest benefits for each one.
Technology, as we have experienced in other industries that focus on the B2C relationship, is a great ally for cost optimisation and generating more efficient and effective businesses. The solutions offered for the B2B segment, not only improve production processes but also economies at a macro level, allowing to generate great impacts and benefits in the society in general. Therefore, it is important to consider investment in innovation in the mining sector, especially understanding that it represents 10% of the national GDP
What benefits could be obtained from the introduction of disruptive innovation in mining?
The mining sector, by integrating disruptive innovation, will be able to generate value for the company in cross-cutting challenges, such as the optimisation of costs and resources and the decrease in the risk of its workers and environmental impact, among other benefits.
In addition to this, thanks to the collaboration with startups, mining has the possibility of influencing the key objectives of its business, which could potentially be reflected in the company’s EBITDA.
Disruptive innovation not only delivers value in every process carried out, but it is also vital for the industry’s business to improve its results in the short and long term.
This is crucial for two reasons: the first has to do with understanding how businesses and the industry is changing through the eyes of entrepreneurs who understand how to deliver solutions to existing problems; the second is related to competition, because in a near future, large companies could be replaced by new players in the market who understand and dominate the technology for a better business functioning. This is how Instagram beat Kodak, Netflix swept Blockbuster away, and Uber creates complications for taxi drivers.
The time for companies to find allies that digitally transform their businesses and take them to the next level is now.
* Read the original article HERE
