So what does this look like in practice? Here are real examples across retail, F&B, and tech—each showing how everyday innovation, when unleashed, delivers outsized impact.

It speeds things up

7-Eleven Philippines — Cutting store personnel updates from 30 days to 1

Store activation and personnel turnover—especially among store managers—is common in retail. Each change impacts key workflows such as approvals, handovers, and escalations, requiring timely updates to maintain operational continuity.

Before: New store activation and personnel change approvals were handled over email, while the store personnel database remained in offline spreadsheets updated monthly. This fragmented setup meant updates were often delayed or inconsistent.

After: Field consultants submit requests through a digital form, instantly triggering an approval workflow and notifying decision-makers in chat. Once approved, the system updates the store personnel database—ensuring a single source of truth for everyone.

“With Lark, we automated complex workflows without writing a single line of code.” — Arvin Reyes, Head of IT, 7-Eleven Philippines

What once took 30 days now takes just 1 day—a 97% improvement. Faster approvals mean new stores open smoothly and existing stores keep running without disruption. This speed directly ties to their ability to scale and maintain revenue consistency.

It keeps you resilient—without piling on tools or cost

Under Armour — Connecting 4,000 employees through one idea

Under Armour's Learning and Development (L&D) team wanted a fast, simple system to keep retail staff engaged across multiple locations—without relying on long development cycles or big budgets.

Before: Daily wins and achievements stayed within individual stores. Staff worked independently without visibility into colleagues' successes at other locations. While formal engagement initiatives were in development, the team needed something immediate.

After: The L&D team launched the "Longest Receipt" contest—encouraging staff to share photos of their biggest sales. The simple photo-sharing initiative evolved into teams celebrating wins, sharing techniques, and creating friendly competition.

The contest became a daily ritual that boosted engagement without waiting for formal programs. Staff felt more connected to the brand and colleagues, friendly competition emerged naturally, and sales techniques spread organically—all using existing resources rather than additional tools or budget.

It creates agility that drives growth

Carro — 100+ workflows built in-house

Carro's growth opened the floodgates to approval requests—onboarding, IT access, finance, expenses, recruitment and more. The easy fix? Buy more tools or add more people. But that's not how Carro thinks about technology or growth.

Before: Car deposit payments required finance team approvals, but requests got buried in email threads. The process lacked audit trails and wasn't straightforward. These requests created pressure to buy specialized tools or assign engineers to build custom solutions.

After: Instead of following the conventional growth playbook, Carro gave their finance team no-code solutions. Now teams could build approval workflows themselves, customize them as needed, and maintain them without depending on engineering resources. Just last year, they built 100+ workflows in-house using existing systems—showing incredible agility in adapting to business needs.

"We don't throw money at problems just because technology exists. We'd rather put our resources where they create real value for customers."— Aaron Tan, CEO, Carro

This kept Carro lean and responsive. Teams adapt processes in real-time without vendor dependencies, implement changes without engineering backlogs, and respond to market conditions without procurement cycles. They maintain startup speed while growing into a larger organization.

It builds a culture of ownership

ZUS Coffee — Getting openings right, every time

By 2025, ZUS Coffee had grown beyond 800 outlets across Southeast Asia—expanding at nearly one new store a day. Each launch was a significant investment that directly shaped customer experience. The operations team ensured outlets met quality standards before launch.

Before: Quality assessments used PDFs and Excel spreadsheets that had evolved over time. Teams visited locations with physical paperwork, noting equipment, electrical, signage, and build quality. The scoring system was distributed across multiple documents with different versions, making it challenging to track real-time progress and maintain consistent standards.

After: Instead of waiting for IT support, the operations team created a digital scoring system in Base. It covered equipment, electrical, signage, store personnel readiness, and more. Scores were calculated automatically, and if an outlet fell below the 70% threshold, launch was rescheduled to ensure quality. The system served as both a checklist and a centralized tracker for store readiness.

"I didn't build this because someone told me to. I built it because we needed something—and I knew how to do it."— Eleena Wang, Operations Support Manager, ZUS Coffee

Store openings became predictable and consistent. More importantly, it showed that innovation doesn't require special roles—just someone who cares enough to act and has the tools and cultural support to solve problems.