万事达创新实验室

MasterCard Labs plays a key role in furthering the innovative culture within MasterCard by engaging thewider business in idea generation processes and innovation competitions. The Innovation Managementteam focuses on managing the programs and processes that generate, qualify, shape and developinnovation opportunities and ideas. We do so by delivering innovation programs to the wider MasterCardorganization. Our goal–to identify and drive disruptive, breakthrough innovations in commerce. Our current programs include: Aspireis a crowd sourcing platform for capturing new ideas and concepts based on a focused challenge.Think of it as an online brainstorming tool where you can provide or get fresh perspectives fromemployees across the organization. The Aspire platform regularly fields regular internal challenges sponsored by a variety of departments.Employees participate not only by submitting their own ideas, but also by viewing, commenting orbuilding upon submitted ideas. Innovation Expressis a two-day, round-the-clock innovation challenge which sees cross-functionalteams collaborate to create new business solutions in a fast-paced environment. It all begins withsolving a customer or business problem. Teams then have just 48-hours to come up with an innovativebut credible solution to the problem by showcasing their best idea as a prototype complete withbusiness plan and video demonstration. LaunchPadis a one-week collaborative sprint with cross-functional teams comprising of business,product, technical and design skill-sets focused on accelerating product development to solve for asingular business challenge. Through the use of rapid prototyping and regular feedback, new solutionsare generated to an advanced prototype stage in just one to two weeks. One of the main reasons that LaunchPad works to produce something tangiblefastis that it bringstogether the right people to get it done. All of the participants have a stake in the event and are intentlyfocused on the outcome. Core team members spend 100% of their time working side-by-side in thesame physical location throughout the intense program, while contributors (including idea owners andsenior executives) step in at key times to provide guidance. Typically, the most promising ideas are taken through the LaunchPad program when being consideredfor incubation. Outputs such as a working prototype, business plan and go-to market strategy helpfacilitate the decision to pilot and commercialize an opportunity. We also use this innovation programin partnership with MasterCard customers through our Labs as aService consultative group. Involveis a company-wide innovation competition where teams of employees compete for the chanceto see their innovation brought to market and launched as a real product. Teams work together outsideof their day jobs to develop a disruptive and transformative product, tied to corporate strategy, whichhas the potential to go all the way to market and become a commercial success. To progress in the competition, teams present fully developed products, including prototype, businesscase and go-to-market plans to senior MasterCard executives to seek executive sponsorship. Teams whoreceive executive sponsorship pass through further checkpoints and qualifiers, before the five mostinnovative and commercially viable ideas are selected for the grand finale. The grand finalesees finalists’ pitch and demo their products to the entire company via a live webcast.MasterCard employees globally vote to determine the ultimate winner. Any participating project may beawarded funding for development as part of MasterCard’s incubation program. Igniteis a Labs program focused onquicksubmission,quickevaluation, andquickimplementation. Itgives participants the opportunity to submit disruptive ideas in response to focused challenges. Theprogram is open to all MasterCard employees and ideas are submitted individually or as a team. Onceidea submissions are received, an evaluation group–consisting of Labs employees and expertsrepresenting each challenge–select the ideas. Finalists present to the executive judging panel whodetermine the winners. Take Initiativeis a two-day global event designed for and taking place in allof MasterCard’stech hubs.The program is built for employees to have an opportunity to take a step back from the day-to-day,to get creative and to solve challenges that are meaningful to them, the team, and the region. Eachlocation has local sponsors and facilitators who host the event and guide teams through the activities. The event brings together teams consisting of a mix of functions and roles to compete to develop aninnovative solution in just two working days. The first day begins with inspiration, collaboration, andideation–then quickly leads into solution-building with a judging finale. Teams are asked to come up with a solution in response to a range of challenges determined bycompany needs and interests. One of the most interestin