Using a common language Over time, large corporations create their own language, acronyms, processes, procedures. These usually developed naturally. Everyone attaches the same meaning to key terms, helping to create efficiencies and a unique culture. It is important to also establish a common language for innovation. It’s not necessary to overcomplicate or overdo it. However, if one part of the organization defines experimentation as coming up with an idea, while another group thinks it means doing a pilot, there is a risk for confusion. This will complicate global innovation stimulation and support. A few basic agreed upon definitions can go a long way. Some of the ones I really secured…
-
-
Customers, of course…
Engaging customers early in innovations Ultimately, it’s the benefit for the customer that drives the commercial value of an innovation. However, it’s so easy to forget this when being busy with planning, meeting, executing, innovating in a hectic corporate environment. Even with the best intentions. A nice example I recall happened in the very innovative Middle East region. One of the topics for the Open Innovation Challenge was “ How can we increase meaningful engagement with customers (doctors) in between the quarterly visits of our representatives?”. Amongst many exciting ideas, we selected the one that proposed to provide each customer with a “button”. The purpose was to put this button…
-
Goooooal !!!
Innovation is not the objective One of the questions we as Innovation Leaders in a large corporation get is “what is Innovation?”. Often, our internal stakeholders assume they need to come up with disruptive, exciting, company-changing initiatives. This can create discouragement and cause innovators to give up trying. My answer is simple: (commercial) innovation is about solving our business and customer challenges in ways never tried before. For example: at a certain time, the global leadership asked me to focus innovation on 3 key business challenges: patients do not adhere to medicines, patients lack access to medicines (availability, affordability) and how we can increase engagement with customers. Once this kind…
-
Millennials
Innovation champions Large organizations typically have many company-wide initiatives going on. To piggyback on those is a very effective way to further innovation objectives. As an example, my corporation created an HR program to accelerate the general management capabilities of very promising young employees who were less than 5 years with the company. These carefully selected employees were provided with 2 annual assignments in different countries and divisions. They also had to allocate 20% of their time to an “action learning project” in a team with 3 of their peers. The program was sponsored by the CEO. I regularly experienced a need for extra manpower to help develop innovation stimulating…
-
More, more, more
Expanding the central innovation team without increasing bureaucracy As I advocated in my earlier blogs, I strongly believe in a small central innovation team. This team should support passionate local innovation leaders across the globe and should track exciting innovations. One of the reasons I want to limit the size of the central innovation team is to limit the number of innovation-stifling processes typically created by large teams. However, small can be too small. I faced a bandwidth challenge when more and more countries (up to 80) created the position of local innovation leader. They created these positions because they saw the results from the early adopting countries (about 30).…
-
Innovation x Innovation
One innovation triggers another Once the innovation mindset gets traction in a corporation, it can create a snowball effect. Innovations that are successful in one country can inspire another and be copied or adapted. This can also happen across brands. A micro financing innovation for Hepatitis C patients in India increased access (affordability) to a life saving medicine. This created a win-win-win situation: a win for patients (treated and cured), a win for the bank that provided the micro loan (new customers), a win for the Pharma company (increased access to their life saving medicine). Thousands of patients achieved access – read more about this in my earlier blog. A…
-
Staying alive!
Innovating faster than competition Not all innovations create a Blue Ocean*. Sometimes you just have to work in a Red Ocean. In that case, it’s important to stay ahead of competition. When sharing innovations from across the organization at inspirational sessions, I was often faced with the critique that it’s easy for competitors to copy some of those innovations. That is of course correct (if one cannot patent the innovation). However, don’t underestimate the advantages of being first. When you’re first, you go through the learnings first, so you have an execution and scaling advantage. When you’re first and your innovation succeeds, your confidence grows, more innovative ideas emerge and…
-
Reverse innovation
Innovating from less to more developed markets In multinational corporations, marketers in emerging markets typically have much more limited resources than their colleagues in the more developed markets. They are forced to solve their challenges more innovatively and experiment with new, unique customer and business solutions. As teams in emerging countries are much smaller than those in large western countries, marketers meet more frequently with other employees and innovators to ideate and to share learnings fast. Small markets also offer an excellent testbed for innovations, as failures have limited impact on the overall organization. There are numerous types of small markets and very diverse combinations of talent. Experimentation is also…
-
BEI
It works! What now? The Back End of Innovation (BEI) is about implementing successful innovations. A unique benefit of large corporations is that innovations that reach success in one part of the organization, e.g. in one country can be copied, adapted and executed across the rest of the organization. There are many barriers to overcome of course, especially the “not invented here” syndrome: “this will not work here, as our country, customer, environment is very different”. I learned, after a couple of failures, how those barriers can be addressed. A business team in Asia had developed an innovative solution to help patients take their diabetes medication appropriately and consistently. They…
-
Why?
Why Commercial Innovation in a Corporation? Business is going well. Profits are growing. The stock price is increasing. Why innovate now? There are many books written about this. Here is my experience with the value of innovation and different “corporate innovation engines”. Innovative Pharma companies’ growth is fueled by R&D. As patents in practice only last for about a decade, the researchers must invent and develop major new medicines frequently. Or the company dissapears. There is a very appealing case for commercial innovation in addition to the R&D invention. Let’s start with the core business: “the pill”. One example: even the best medicines are not being used by everyone who…