TOGA – Blazing new trails in construction innovation

Identifying new business avenues to avoid disruption

The world is changing faster than ever as a result of significant technological advances. The property development and construction industry has been a relatively slow adopter of change to date. However, there is an increasingly greater focus on new methodologies and technologies within the industry.

TOGA is a successful developer of quality residential apartments throughout Australia and cannot afford to sit back and do nothing while the industry is undergoing a transformation. TOGA aspires to be a leading innovative company and its senior leaders are passionate about championing new ways-of-working.

“TOGA aspires to be at the forefront of innovation in construction. The property development & construction sector has traditionally been slow to embrace change. We engaged The Strategy Group as a partner to not just build innovation capability but guide us to identify new business avenues to be at the cutting edge of development & construction innovation.”

– Fabrizio Perilli, CEO of TOGA Development and Construction

THE APPROACH

A tailored program designed to build capability and drive commercial outcomes

The Strategy Group designed a tailored program with the following goals:

Build innovation capability for TOGA and its people
Nurture a culture of innovation which permeates the entire organisation
Deliver innovative solutions to real challenges facing the TOGA business to achieve commercial outcomes.

The program involved three internal startups addressing three defined business challenges over a dedicated nine-week period. The individuals within each startup were taken away from their normal roles within the TOGA business and put in the program to develop their entrepreneurial and innovation capability. Lean Startup principles and the Business Model Canvas framework were used to provide a structured approach to develop assumptions about their challenge, test these assumptions with real customers, and adapt their direction and strategy based on their findings via a process of continuous learning.

The Strategy Group guided the startups through the program with theoretical training, experiential learning, practical guidance, and immersion in the startup world.
At the end of the 9 weeks, the startups pitched their concepts to an Investment Panel comprised of TOGA leaders in order to obtain real funding to progress their concept with TOGA as the initial investor.

THE OUTCOME

New directions for the business

The program delivered three new and validated business models ready to be funded and operationalised.

Alongside these commercial outcomes, the individual participants learned valuable skills in new business model development, the application of Lean principles, adopting a customer-centric mindset to new product and service development, and fostering an entrepreneurial culture.