Sustainable innovations that help society and business For-profit corporations typically focus on innovations that address business and customer challenges. Humanitarian organizations focus on innovations that help society in a non-profit way. These two approaches do not have to be mutually exclusive. Following is an innovative example of synergy between both. A marketer in Vietnam faced two challenges for the cervical cancer prevention vaccine she managed. A large part of the population, mostly in the larger cities, was able to afford the out-of-pocket price of the vaccine but did not pursue the vaccination. This was mainly because they were not aware of the vaccine or didn’t understand why they needed it.…
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Manufacturing
Collaborators for Innovation When commercial innovators want to address a problem, IT technologies and colleagues often come to mind first. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the potential solutions that can be generated in collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines, like finance or manufacturing. I described in an earlier blog how to break through silo’s. Let me illustrate how business challenges can be solved by working together with manufacturing colleagues. Following are examples of innovations related to two key areas of manufacturing. Packaging Problem: a key customer, a major hospital in the Netherlands, was often under stocked / over stocked on Product X. Reason: the hospital typically ordered medicines monthly. Because of…
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People, people, people
Innovation Leaders engaging with Human Resources Although usually not the primary reason to start an innovation program in a corporation, there can be significant value of this kind of program for employee development. A few examples of the benefits I observed: Employee engagement Innovators. I have seen employees from all across the corporation come up with great ideas and passionately pursuing them. These colleagues emerged from Marketing, Sales, IT, Manufacturing, Medical Affairs, Finance, … A sales representative in India won a global innovation award for his idea to address the high cost of inviting global opinion leaders to local events in India (the solution was based on hologram technology). The…
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Stop/start
Creating a climate that stimulates innovation When corporate leaders decide that more innovation needs to come from within the organization, many employees need to stop some old habits and start new ones. A few examples: Leadership Start/do: communicate frequently, strongly and precisely about the problems the corporation wants innovative solutions for. Stop/don’t: expect dramatic impact will be generated quickly. Instead, give innovators time to experiment within set boundaries. Innovators Start/do: come up with new ideas on how specific problems can be solved. Stop/don’t: embark on a big, expensive Pilot. Instead, follow an innovation framework, like Idea, Experiment, Pilot. Middle managers Start/do: support passionate innovators in their team, e.g. with encouragement…
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Un-barrier-ing
Innovation Leaders helping Innovators I explored earlier what the role can be of a corporate Innovation Leader: to identify/remove barriers for innovation and to manage an innovation portfolio. Below, I selected 10 examples of typical barriers innovators are struggling with and a way how Innovation Leaders (IL) can address each of those barriers (I embedded some references to my earlier blogs). I am afraid of failure IL: Ask leadership to publicly share examples of “good” failure and what was learned from these failures. I am not sure what innovation means (e.g. when the corporation asks “everyone should innovate”) IL: Communicate what problems the corporation wants innovative solutions for and share…