ESADE and the elBullifoundation have kicked off the third edition of the Creativity for Business Innovation (C4Bi) challenge, a student competition that seeks to highlight the value of creative process auditing, a tool used by chef Ferran Adrià to assess innovation processes at his restaurant, el Bulli. This year’s edition of the competition is more international than ever. In addition to ESADE students, students from the University of California, Berkeley (US), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and Aalto University (Finland) will be participating. Participants will have to apply the creative process auditing technique to raise awareness of the possibilities and benefits offered by HP Latex large-format printing technology for interior design and decoration amongst professionals from the sector.

This year, students from ESADE’s Master in Business Administration (MBA), Masters of Science (MSc), and Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) programmes have entered. Specifically, 58 teams are competing in the first round of the challenge, comprising a total of 174 students from ESADE’s Sant Cugat del Vallès campus (Barcelona) of 42 nationalities.

The aim of this pioneering partnership between elBullifoundation and ESADE is to transfer this auditing technique, developed at elBulli, to the creative and innovation processes used at companies and institutions. To this end, the students will analyse a project by HP, specifically, how the company is reinventing the interior design and decoration sector with its HP Latex large-format printing technology. This technology was developed at HP’s International Centre in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona), the company’s largest research and development centre outside the US, which employs around 2,000 people of 61 nationalities and takes out more than 150 patents a year.

The HP Latex large-format printing technology is very versatile, with applications for all types of materials, including wallpaper, vinyl, canvas, printed flooring, textiles and faux leather, amongst others. Additionally, its water-based – as opposed to solvent – inks are emission-free and odourless, both essential qualities for indoor applications and closed spaces. The wide range of applications, coupled with the ability to generate unique and customised print runs, the ease of application and the affordable cost, expands print service providers’ business opportunities, whilst driving the transformation of the interior design and decoration sectors.

Hackathon to complete the HP audit

The final round of the C4Bi will take the form of a hackathon. Over the course of three days, the finalist students will visit the elBulliLab, where renowned chef Ferran Adrià will give a master class and present the Sapiens methodology. The teams will also visit HP’s International Centre, where several executives and managers from the tech company will discuss their strategies and innovation programmes. Finally, the student teams will have twelve hours to audit HP’s creative process and prepare their conclusions and proposals, which they will have to present to an international panel of judges consisting of Adrià, from elBullifoundation, Joan Pérez Pericot, General Manager Large-Format Printing at HP, and Josep Franch, dean of ESADE Business School.

‘We are very pleased to be able to participate in this challenge with ESADE and elBullifoundation, as we believe that the young students’ creativity and entrepreneurship will provide us with a fresh and innovative vision that will help us continue to drive the transformation of the decoration sector’, said Pérez Pericot.

According to Adrià, ‘Creative process auditing is a tool to maximise efficiency in innovation and, above all, to ensure that this efficiency lasts a long time’. As he has explained before, ‘The concept of creative process auditing is new in the business and management world.’ Therefore, a group of ESADE Business School faculty members and a team from elBullifoundation have worked on applying creative process auditing to businesses and developed a new tool for auditing creative processes at companies seeking to innovate.

Background and recognition

‘The C4Bi is part of ESADE’s new Student First educational model, which is based on learning by doing and direct contact with the reality of companies’, said Franch. ‘The C4Bi is a unique opportunity for students – especially those interested in innovation processes, developing creative capabilities and entrepreneurship – to experiment with a new methodology designed to foster a better understanding of creative and innovative processes in the business world’, he added.

In the first edition of the C4Bi, the participants audited the creative process of the Roca Group’s W+W project, drawing on secondary data sources and expert opinions. Last year, for the second edition, students applied the prestigious chef’s auditing technique to Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona and, specifically, its Darwin Medical Simulation Centre, a pioneering facility in the use of simulation as a teaching tool.

Last academic year, the Creativity for Business Innovation Challenge was given an Innovations that Inspire award by the AACSB, the largest global education network. The award recognises the innovations that best illustrate the essential work performed by business schools to improve their communities and society at large. The implementation of the C4Bi has also received the Educational Innovation Award, which recognises teaching quality and innovation in the field of education within the ESADE community.