New innovation lab for the office industry
The traditional Bernese companies Bigla Office and Biella have launched an innovation lab for the office sector. The "InnOffice Lab", located at Biella in Brügg, is intended to accelerate the innovation process as a first step. Further expansion ideas exist. With this cooperative venture, the parties involved want to keep pace with the rapid changes surrounding digitalization and new forms of work in the office world.
Launching an innovation lab specifically for the office sector? This was precisely the vision of Björn Ischi, an industrial designer from Biel. Ischi has been advising the office furniture manufacturer Bigla Office for some time, and when he began to support the Biella company in product innovation, the idea became concrete. Not least because the office world is changing due to digitalization and new forms of work such as co-working. Why not actually network companies from the same industry and use the resources of economic strengths and shared know-how and apply them to new and innovative products? To make this idea of innovation visible and tangible, a space was created for it and the "InnOffice Lab" was born.
The InnOffice Lab
The InnOffice Lab consists of the companies Biella from Brügg and Bigla Office from Biglen. Both are traditional Swiss manufacturers of products in the office sector. Biella is the market leader in the manufacture of office supplies and Bigla Office produces office furniture. Together, the companies bring over 200 years of experience in the industry. These resources are now being put to targeted use for customers in the in-house InnOffice Lab on Biella's premises.
In order to shorten structural and work paths, internal processes are to be redefined and merged. Workshops are used in product management to work specifically on a topic, such as digitization or the office of the future, in which new products are created. "The existing innovation processes are expanded through deliberate methodology such as design thinking and is intended to lead abstract ideas more quickly to market-ready products," says Ischi, explaining the procedure in the new innovation lab and adding, "With product presentations, prototyping and live testing on site, speditive influence can be made in the optimization."
Markus Heinzle, Managing Director of Biella Switzerland, fully supports the idea: "The InnOffice Lab should be a successful and efficient platform that the employees of both companies can use to their advantage. They will be able to intervene in product development and optimization right on the spot, while at the same time incorporating knowledge from their own field." Eduard Bähler, Managing Director of Bigla Office, was also enthusiastic from the start: "With the InnOffice Lab, we can develop and improve products in collaboration with our customers. As a result, we are more focused and customer-oriented on the road."
Meet experts in the innovation lab
Both companies are currently using the Innovation Lab for their internal product and business development purposes. Ideas for external use exist. As soon as the InnOffice Lab is established internally, it is planned to open the doors with events and presentations for SMEs and the public under the motto "Meet the Expert". With targeted topics such as "Future Trends", "Co-Working Space" or "Filing with System", inspiration, discussion and networking should be created. Individual solutions could be developed for companies and tested directly by test persons. These and other interesting topics will then be presented to a broad audience.
