Combining capabilities to innovate
Leading corporations in their industries have amazing capabilities to successfully drive their core business. When they encounter the need for a totally new capability, they may stumble. Innovative collaboration can be a way out.
Once upon a time, a pharma company in a huge Asian country faced a challenge to create broad awareness about a life threatening disease, Hepatitis C, for which they had developed a revolutionary treatment. To inform the population, they organized educational sessions, village by village. This was a very slow process, too slow for many patients whose life could have been saved.
The company had identified that one of the major ways the disease/virus spread, was by men sharing straight shaving razors with their family members. Through micro cuts, blood and the virus were transmitted.
From their network connections, they knew that another company was interested in reaching the same segment of the population. This global consumer company planned to market affordable, disposable safety shaving razors. This company had deep expertise in mass communication, but was struggling to create a stronger value proposition for their target population.
The Pharma and consumer companies decided to partner. The pharma company contributed disease knowledge and regulatory expertise to develop the scientifically sound messaging. The retail company managed the mass marketing and communication plan.
Result: a win-win-win. A win for the customers: the patients, who were aware of their disease and stopped spreading the disease to their family. A win for the pharma company: patients were aware of their disease and could now discuss treatment options with their doctor. A win for the consumer company: increased sales of disposable shaving razors.
It’s very non-traditional for a company from one industry to partner with a company from another industry. Barriers include unfamiliarity, differences in culture, language, risk adversity and decision making. There is the “we’ve never done this before” syndrome and the “we do things our way” mindset. If more innovators get the chance to build broad networks and try these kind of collaborations, they will learn from these experiences. Thus, confidence will grow, more experiments will succeed and more innovative opportunities will emerge.
As Amit Ray said:
“Collaboration has no hierarchy. The Sun collaborates with soil to bring flowers on the earth.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I supported innovators who collaborated innovatively with other industries, shared their examples and learnings widely across the company and stimulated networking with colleagues in other industries.
More reading: Cross-Industry Ecosystems: Growth Outside the Box
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