From innovation to value: Knowledge powerhouse aims to stimulate green and profitable transformation

The world has embarked on the next big digitalisation phase. Telenor deems digitalisation crucial for enabling the green shift, but as new technologies become more advanced, it gets harder for entities to master them all individually.

“The key for businesses to create and capture growth and contribute to climate friendly operations in the digital era are ecosystems between private and public companies and organisations,” says Frank Elter, Chief Scientist of Telenor Research.

“Society needs arenas where different actors operating different technologies can collaborate to create commercially sound and new green solutions. And that’s where the Digital Transformation Hub comes into the picture,” says Elter.

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The Digital Transformation Hub (HUB@NHH) is a collaborative learning powerhouse for business leaders, established by The Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and founding partner Telenor, that began operations last year.

“The goal is to educate leaders, decision-makers, and businesses on how to apply technology to create value for customers and capture sustainable and economic value in their innovations,” says Tor W. Andreassen, professor and director of the HUB@NHH.

“Having Telenor as a partner, who understands and acts on the fact that technology and digitalisation are key drivers for both sustainability and profit, brings crucial knowledge to our work with training people in organisations concerned with digital innovations, green transformation, and value creation,” Andreassen points out.

The Hub, physically located at NHH’s campus in Bergen on the western Norwegian coastline, is part of the national research centre DIG (Digital Innovation for sustainable Growth).

“Through the Hub, corporate leaders, board members, policy-makers, and academics get access to the latest business oriented research stemming from DIG. We also cooperate with the best research environments in the nation, such as the Norwegian Open AI Lab at NTNU in Trondheim. No other collaboration arena in Norway offers leaders the same opportunity to meet and discuss digital innovation and transformation in such a competency environment,” says Andreassen.

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The HUB@NHH consists of nearly 30 different members who work towards the shared ambition of creating sustainable value in a digital era.

“Value creation in new ecosystems and sustainability’s effect on business investment and new business models will impact taxation in the future. We, therefore, seek to understand these processes, and we believe we can gain relevant and valuable knowledge and learnings by collaboration with other members of the HUB@NHH,” says Nina Schanke Funnemark, Director General of the Norwegian Tax Administration.

In addition to public and private companies, academic institutions, and government agencies, trade unions also see benefits from being part of the research arena.

“Our aim is to create opportunities for our members to learn from the top academics and practitioners in this field, as well as expanding their professional network. The HUB@NHH is a great physical arena for exchanging ideas, inspiration, and new insight, so it will be exciting to follow the development and the new research stemming from DIG in the years to come,” says Nina Riibe, CEO of Econa, a Norwegian trade union for business administrators.

Visit NHH.no to read more about the HUB@NHH and its first annual leadership summit.