AgTech Collaboration Through a Wide Lens

Croptastic S5, Ep. 53: Ron Adner - Croptastic

Last week, Dr. Ron Adner, a leading business strategist and professor at Tuck School of Business who’s writing has had a significant influence on how I think about the world of business, joined InnerPlant co-founder and CEO Shely Aronov on an episode of Croptastic.

I encourage you to listen to the podcast, and read both of Ron Adner’s books, The Wide Lens and Winning the Right Game.

The discussion was compelling to me because the frameworks shared in those books has been instrumental in my thinking of ecosystems and business strategy.

I wanted to go through and apply some of the frameworks from The Wide Lens to what the InnerPlant (Disclosure: Upstream Ag Ventures Inc. is an investor in InnerPlant) team is doing.

Winning Through Ecosystems

The back page of The Wide Lens states the following (emphasis mine):

When looking at the InnerPlant technology, a biotech trait that enables plants to fluoresce when they encounter stresses such as fungal disease, it becomes apparent that there is an array of other technologies necessary for InnerPlant to be successful. From sensors that can interpret the plant signal, sensors inexpensive and ubiquitous enough to deliver frequent insight, pieces of equipment (drone, tractor etc) in a field with the ability to interpret the signals and act on them, germplasm to place the trait, and crop protection companies that want to leverage that novel signal to deliver a better outcome to farmers as just some of the examples.

Some of this can be done in an integrated fashion by InnerPlant itself. However, there is a need to collaborate with various players, increase value delivery throughout the supply chain, and embed itself within the fabric of industry best practices and leading companies.

Innovation Strategy

In a 2006 Harvard Business Review article on ecosystem dynamics called Match Your Innovation Strategy to Your Innovation Ecosystem by Dr. Adner, he stated the following (emphasis mine):

InnerPlant CEO Shely Aronov has not only acknowledged the dependencies in regards to InnerPlant’s innovation but has also leaned into it by establishing collaboration initiatives with the likes of John Deere, Syngenta, Mertec, CropLife 100 retailers and others:

Ecosystem Risks

In the book, Dr. Adner introduces three core interdependent risks that innovators often overlook when deploying innovation:

1. Execution risks — the challenges you face in bringing your innovation to the required specification within the time necessary.

2. Co-innovation risks — the extent to which the successful commercialization of your innovation depends on the successful commercialization of other innovations.

3. Adoption chain risks — the extent to which partners will need to adopt your innovation before end consumers can assess the whole value proposition.

All of these risks need to be solved for, or an innovation fails.

Execution risk is generally within a company’s control— in the instance of InnerPlant, this comes down to being able to place the trait into seeds successfully, delineate the signals effectively, etc., so I won’t get into that today, but want to breakdown the other two risks: Co-innovation and Adoption chain.

Co Innovation Risk

Managing co-innovation risk is what the InnerPlant team has thoughtfully executed to this point.

A company like John Deere is a large, influential entity with its own priorities. It isn’t necessarily interested in another pilot or trial project. John Deere wants to work on things that will drive its business forward, consistent with its vision.

That means the most crucial aspect of co-innovation risk is overcoming the initial threat that no one wants to commercialize with your innovation.

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