How the Amazon Innovation Accelerator helped Lumorus to rethink business efficiency

Most business leaders are innovative by nature. They tend to be resourceful, find solutions quickly and rally a whole team around their vision. But even the most curious minds can benefit from stepping outside the day-to-day and looking at familiar challenges through a different lens. 

For Romeo Effs, CEO of Lumorus, the Amazon Innovation Accelerator provided that opportunity. It helped him look at established ways of working differently and return to his team with several ideas for improving productivity. 

A new mindset from day one 

Lumorus is an impact and governance consultancy focused on sustainable value creation through stronger governance, responsible leadership and accountability. Its work is grounded in responsible capitalism – the idea that businesses can create long-term value while treating people and the planet fairly. 

With offices in London, Ghana, Jamaica and Canada, the team supports businesses across the UK, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Americas. 

Romeo joined the Amazon Innovation Accelerator without much of an agenda. But as a former supply chain consultant, his perspective shifted when he visited the fulfilment centre. Processes that would have seemed impossible decades ago were now operating at scale. 

Amazon’s warehouses blew my mind. My focus quickly switched to the idea of how I can automate work so that it removes mundane, monotonous steps and makes it much easier to focus on growing our business. Seeing all the things they’ve automated and made easier opens your mind to apply that way of thinking to your own business. 

Learning through experimentation 

Through the programme, Romeo gained a new perspective on disciplined experimentation – testing ideas, learning from the results and using those lessons to inform what comes next. 

Hearing the things Amazon had tried that didn’t work gave me the confidence to recognise that not everything we try will succeed. What matters is learning from mistakes and using those lessons to inform the next idea. 

He also encouraged his leadership team to engage with the training materials. 

Our team always talk about it because they learned so much from it. I can also see it in the way they think and approach things. The accelerator has changed the way we approach innovation a lot. 

From the site visit to the PRFAQ model, Romeo has taken value from Amazon's programme. Even having the time to meet other leaders has had a positive impact: 

I’m already collaborating with someone who I met through the programme. We’re working on a new product together, which I lacked some of the key knowledge for. If I hadn’t taken part, I would still be in the mindset of trying to figure it out by myself. 

Ramping up business efficiency 

After the programme, Romeo kept coming back to one question: what were they still doing manually they could automate? That renewed curiosity has led to several productivity improvements in how Lumorus works. 

Before the programme, I was often the person initiating new ideas. Now, innovation is much more systematic and open across the organisation. This change came after learning about Amazon’s workflow optimisation and innovation request workstream. We’ve set up a system where anyone in the team can put forward ideas for things they want to automate or improve. 

Another area the team had been struggling with was identifying suitable tenders, a process that used to take them two to three hours per opportunity. Today, they’ve reduced that time significantly. 

Since the accelerator, we’ve developed a tool that reads and grades tenders, surfacing only opportunities that meet our 75% relevance and suitability threshold. This has increased the number of tender submissions we can complete tenfold. 

Not only has the programme improved efficiency, but it’s also reframed Romeo’s perspective on what’s possible. 

The Amazon Innovation Accelerator has accelerated the growth path that I had envisioned for the company. It’s made us more productive and resilient, while widening my thinking about what’s possible.