MC Sonae · Innovation Strategy
73 startups scouted, 20 PoCs approved: running Portugal's largest retailer's innovation funnel
- Innovation Strategy
- Open Innovation
- PoC Management
Context
MC Sonae is Portugal's largest food retailer, owner of Continente, Wells, and other major consumer brands.
My role
UX and Business Designer, embedded in MC Sonae's Test Bed program as part of the CESAR Europe team.
Team
Embedded within Sonae's innovation structure, working directly with startup teams and internal stakeholders across 7 quarterly cycles.
Timeframe
7 quarterly innovation cycles, over 2 years.
Company & User
The business problem
How can a retail giant at the scale of MC Sonae systematically incorporate emerging technologies (AI, IoT, Robotics) without losing agility in experimentation? Large organizations need governance and predictability. Startups need speed and tolerance for failure. That tension is real, and most innovation programs pick one side and lose the other.
What success looked like
Not just finding interesting technologies, but curating solutions that could realistically be tested and scaled inside real retail operations, with a process rigorous enough for corporate governance and fast enough to keep startups engaged.
Technologies in scope
AI-powered retail analytics, AR/VR, GenAI chatbots and content generation, IoT and sensor systems, robotics and automation, consumer experience tech, supply chain optimization.
Process
Strategic scouting and curation
Mapped the Portuguese market continuously, ran structured vetting for each quarterly pitch batch, assessing technical maturity, market fit, and strategic alignment with MC Sonae's innovation agenda.
Founder support
Supported entrepreneurs through the full application journey, from 1:1 orientation and business canvas construction to PoC planning and pitch day. This wasn't optional hand-holding: it's what kept promising solutions from getting lost to process friction.
PoC governance
Led weekly working sessions to support sprint planning, unblock execution, and keep documentation structured and traceable across every active PoC.
Feedback loops
Ran sprint review meetings between startup teams and Sonae stakeholders, making sure learnings from each experiment actually informed go/no-go decisions instead of getting lost between meetings.
Results & Impact
- 73 startups advanced to pitch across 7 batches, following structured market scouting and eligibility vetting
- 20 PoCs approved for development and experimentation in live retail environments, a ~27% conversion rate reflecting deliberate curation over volume
- 7 batches managed end to end, from scouting and application support to pitch governance and post-selection oversight
- Developed One-Pager frameworks and PoC governance protocols that improved traceability and made the program replicable across future batches
Closure & Relevance
Open innovation is fundamentally a design problem. Working inside a Test Bed at this scale taught me that the artifact isn't the product: it's the process, the governance, the trust built between organizations that speak completely different languages. The most important skill wasn't scouting or facilitation. It was translation.
Why this matters for Product Management and Innovation Strategy roles
This case is the clearest evidence of operating at scale, with real governance constraints, real conversion metrics, and real cross-cultural translation between startup speed and corporate process. It's the strongest single proof point for anyone evaluating Amanda for a role that requires managing ambiguity at an organizational level, not just at a project level.