Innovation consulting firm elects Texbrasil project best of 2014

The Entrelacar innovation project, held in 2014 by Texbrasil, the Brazilian Fashion Industry Internationalization Program, developed by Abit in partnership with Apex-Brasil (Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency), has been chosen best of the year by Insitum, a specialized consulting firm named by the Fast Company as the 4th most innovative company in Latin America.

It was chosen by the company’s own consulting team.The Program was up against three other finalists:a usability project for the financial sector; another product design project for the agriculture industry; and a services design project for an energy efficiency company.

According to Ivan Lucchini, the firm’s Managing Partner in Brazil, the project took first place because rather than being made for a client, it was made with the client.”We were at Abit for quite a while, interacting with the company’s current culture, observing how processes and personal relations occurred, until we designed what would be the new innovation area and its processes.We set up a pilot project under real conditions to test the new methodology and, not only did the new processes work, but the solutions developed by the Texbrasil team were excellent,” he said.

The goal of the Entrelacar Project was to develop an innovation area with design thinking processes and methodologies specific to the Program.During the first half of last year, the Program’s internal team was split into two groups made up of multidisciplinary professionals in the areas of communications, trade promotion, competitive intelligence, and fashion and design.The first group created the Abraco Project, aimed at finding solutions to improve relations with companies.And the second developed the Brasilidade Project, which created a new trade promotion product to publicize and sell Brazilian products to end consumers.”We were frequently encouraged and supported by Apex-Brasil to innovate in a disruptive manner and we are very satisfied with the result of this project, which is just the start of a continual process of systemic innovation,” explains the CEO of Abit, Rafael Cervone.

The projects’ results were well received by the entire Texbrasil team and have already begun to be implemented in the program’s day-to-day operations. “We began several changes to relationships processes with companies and are in the implementation phase of the Brasilidade project, which should result in a special initiative in the United States in 2016,” he says.According to the executive, the goal is for innovation to be a bigger and bigger part of the Program team’s work and even to function as an inspiration for industry companies.Other projects are already being planned for this year.