To maintain innovation momentum When leadership decides to stimulate internal innovations, the typical first step is to assign an Innovation Leader. Then, a lot of activity and excitement follows, ideas are generated and experiments are initiated. Some experiments fail, some need multiple iterations, many take a long time – often years – to demonstrate they work. Sometimes, this chain reaction happens: leadership interest wanes, the employees no longer feel the urgency to innovate and the corporation moves on to “other priorities”. Innovation Leaders manage expectations, communicate continuously, provide status updates while innovations mature. But leadership teams are used to see results – fast. So it helps to generate some quick…
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Hi-Lo-No Tech
Not all innovations should be technology driven Innovation is often treated as a synonym for technology or even digitalization. Technology certainly can solve business and customer problems in innovative ways. Digital technology can facilitate rapid prototyping, cheap iterating and quick scaling of successful innovations. However, it is unnecessary to limit innovation to technology/digital solutions only. The objective of innovation should be to solve problems and if a digital solution is the best one, go for it. If not, don’t. A few examples of non-digital innovations to address specific problems: Affordability – Problem: some Hepatitis C patients in India do not have the cash flow to immediately pay in full for…
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IP
Not to forget… When developing a new product, it is obvious to file for Intellectual Property (IP) protection. When developing an innovative service “around” an existing product, we do not always think about protecting it. We were fortunate to have a forward thinking innovator in our Pharma IT organization, who did file patents for his innovative service ideas. An example: In several countries, when physicians recommend adult vaccines, the patient first needs to fill the prescription in the pharmacy and then go back to the physician to get the injection. Many patients never come back, because they do not want to waste their time in the waiting room again. This…
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Learning curve
What I found out… Innovation is about solving specific problems, addressing needs for improvement, generate changes for the better by experimenting, learning, adapting. Innovation leadership can sometimes be a little bit like this too. Last year, Scott Kirsner from InnovationLeader interviewed me on the topic “What did you wish you had known before you started as Innovation Leader?”. Although I believe I did most of what’s needed to stimulate innovation in a large organization, there were a few practices I would have doubled down on, knowing now the critical value of: … a specific definition. If innovation is not really well defined, there will be different interpretations, making it very…
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Musts
Recommended innovation resources I’m often asked which innovation congresses, books, blogs I like. It’s impossible to appropriately cover all kinds of innovation in a few media outlets: open innovation, lean innovation, reverse innovation, disruptive innovation, … And like innovation itself, media change constantly. Following are sources I really valued, based on my role as corporate innovation leader. I selected 2 for each category. I have no financial benefit in any of these. Books The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton Christensen. This is the classic everyone working on innovation must read. Inspirational, clear examples of good companies in different industries that failed when disruptive…