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the members of RBI’s Management Board invited employees to submit ideas for changes. Volunteers from various
functions took on the task of designing a more creative environment for more open communication and cooperation.
The first phase involved creating inviting and open meeting spaces at RBI AG’s head office in order to promote a
cultural change. Former archive and IT rooms were identified for conversion into meeting spaces for all employees.
Following an agile approach, construction work on the first MeetUp! Collaboration Area at RBI AG’s head office
began in September and the opening took place as early as mid-December. Another area will be converted in
the first quarter of the coming year.
MeetUp! Collaboration Area, © RBI AG
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2018
These MeetUp! Collaboration Areas offer greater
comfort and a familiar and more flexible meeting
environment, thereby facilitating cooperation and the
exchange of information between the bank’s
employees.
We are confident that human interaction and face-toface
communication are valuable ways of stimulating
innovation. These flexible meeting spaces will help
to form communities, change discussion habits, keep
chains of communication short and enable a creative
flow of ideas.
Innovation – the companion of digitization
Innovation Garden is RBI’s new Group-wide intrapreneurship program. It allows employees to develop new
ideas and solutions for the future of RBI. The aim is to promote innovative strength, creativity and entrepreneurial
thinking by forming multidisciplinary, multicultural teams throughout the entire banking group.
The program gives “intrapreneurs” the opportunity to act like entrepreneurs within the safe environment of the
organization. They form cross-functional teams and are supported by experienced innovation trainers and RBI
experts.
765 ideas were submitted to an idea contest in the spring 2018, while almost 300 people applied for the
Innovation Garden program. The RBI Innovation Jam was held in June, with 100 intrapreneurs from eleven countries
working to develop the 20 most promising ideas and build the first prototypes. Eight of these ideas were selected
by the Innovation Board headed by CEO Johann Strobl for further development as part of the twelve-week
Innovation Garden program. These projects were presented to the Innovation Board at the Demo Day. The
Innovation Board selected the top two innovation ideas, which progressed to the next phase of realization.