Growth Hub: why it’s fundamental to IMI’s future

A green hydrogen electrolyser system is just one of the latest products from IMI’s innovation engine, known as the Growth Hub, which is fast attracting start-up partnerships, talent and customer interest
Innovation is essential for business success. Received wisdom says that it’s lean start-ups that are best at disrupting the status quo, while well-established companies do better by optimising their products or services. IMI has turned these assumptions upside down with its Growth Hub process. Since 2018, a series of sprint cycles and stage-gated processes focusing on solving real, industry problems have generated millions of pounds worth of new business.
Growth Hub works by incubating start-ups within IMI, drawing on a diverse range of talent and experience from inside the business. It developed from a growth accelerator process introduced by IMI’s CEO Roy Twite, with IMI Critical Engineering one of the first divisions to test it out.
“Being invited to the first round of IMI Critical’s pitches in early 2019 was eye-opening,” says Kieran Griffin, Growth Hub Director, IMI Hydronic Engineering. “I turned up thinking we were going to hear about the latest, biggest valve they were going to make. Instead, we saw a mindset shift. Solving customer problems was right at the core. We were inspired to get going with this new way of working.”
“From the start, we made sure we didn’t fall into the trap of marginalising innovation,” says David Powell-Wiffen, IMI Critical’s Growth Hub Director. Instead, he and colleagues in other divisions integrated the Growth Hub with company culture and formalised its four phases.
How Growth Hub works
“During phase one, our foresight teams search for industry problems we might solve in both existing and new, attractive markets such as pharma, hydrogen and energy tech," David says. Any team within IMI can pitch a Growth Hub project. “We focus on the real hair-on-fire industry problems,” he says.
“Throughout phases one and two, we test ideas with customers,” says Caroline Zyla, Head of Growth Hub, IMI Precision Engineering. “We start with: ‘If we could solve your problem, is that something you’d be prepared to pay for?’”
Phase three is about starting to build that solution and proving we are able to scale it locally. “Proving the concepts, creating pilots with our customers,” David says. “When a Growth Hub team has proven they have a certain number of requests for quotes, bookings, or another agreed metric and that we can deliver on it, the final task in phase three is to create the investment plan to show how they’ll globally scale that before pitching to go to phase four.”
“This final phase gives me the most grey hairs,” says Caroline. “But it’s the really exciting part, because you then start to see sales.”
Needle-moving ideas: green hydrogen
“We’re working on getting people to think big, brave and risky enough,” Caroline says. “Seeing the potential for sales not just for the next year but for three to five years ahead. It’s a completely different way of doing business to how we’ve done it in the past.”
“We’re interested in those needle-moving ideas,” David says, giving as examples IMI’s Retrofit 3D service and an electrolyser enabling IMI Critical to move into the green hydrogen market.
IMI VIVO Electrolyser’s technology transforms water into hydrogen using renewable electricity as an energy source. It provides customers with everything they need to produce green hydrogen, which could make up almost a quarter of our energy supply by 2050 and will significantly help to reduce carbon emissions.
“In less than a year, the team had secured two orders for over £2 million in 2022, in a market set to be worth trillions over the coming decades,” he says.
“We’re currently at phase three: validating the solution and generating that customer pull. Several things give us a real advantage: having a dedicated team working on customised solutions; our complex project management abilities; leveraging technical expertise and partnering to accelerate speed to market; and strong network engagement. The next big task is to really understand how we’re going to scale it.”
IMI’s purpose drives innovation
“Growth Hub produces the best projects because everything about them is related to purpose. They’re the ones that people want to work on,” says Caroline. “And the process is a great opportunity for graduates,” she adds. “They get to the heart of a problem by asking the right questions.”
“Our sales people love it too, because it’s something new and interesting to talk about,” says David. “At trade shows people are saying: ‘We understand you can solve these big issues, do you want a crack at working with us on this or that problem?’ So there’s now more of a pull to the conversation. It’s something that simply wouldn’t have happened three years ago.”
The next step? “As Growth Hub has matured, we’re embedding the process in each of the five regions,” says David. “We’re speeding up test and learn so we can pivot quickly. But there’s loads still to do. We’re still only at the beginning.”
Ready to build your career as an engineer innovator? Apply now for a place on one of IMI’s graduate programmes.