Keeping innovation lean Large corporations excel at creating efficiencies and managing risk. This is accomplished through established processes, like repetitive project reviews and engagement of experts, including finance, legal and compliance teams. Obviously, this approach may limit internally generated innovation, as innovation is characterized by a limited process (“agile”, “lean”) and taking risks (risk of failure and risk inherent to “boldly go where no one has gone before”). Innovators in corporations usually have to experiment with their ideas on top of their full-time, regular job. They may be discouraged by the time it takes to follow rigid processes, like filling in multiple forms, preparing for in depth project reviews and…

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.…

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…

Absolutely! Some innovations happened by accident – think penicillin or Post-it Notes. However, those accidents are exceptions: most innovations happen through the scientific method. Why? Look how innovations in corporations typically happen. Someone defines a problem. An innovator comes up with an idea to solve this problem. The innovator has a hypothesis: reasons why that idea might work. The innovator experiments (e.g. with a prototype) to validate the hypothesis. If the experiment fails, the original idea is discarded or adapted. If the experiment succeeds, a larger test (a Pilot) is set up to evaluate the full implementation and value. If the Pilot is considered successful, it is broadly commercialized. This…

Musing about who innovates… I often read articles that imply that the Innovation Leaders are also the Innovators. In my opinion, there is a simple definition and a simple difference between the two. Innovation Leaders, as I discussed/defined in another blog, focus on stimulating an innovation mindset in the corporation and on managing a portfolio of innovation experiments (i.e. guiding Innovators). Sometimes they are also responsible to scale successful innovations across their corporation. Innovators are the ones that create innovations: they come up with an Idea, they Experiment, they do a Pilot. If their innovation is successful, they may also lead its scaling across the corporation. There can be some…

Time for innovation One pandemic, the Plague of Justinian, helped to bring down an empire (the Byzantine), because of inappropriate responses. Another pandemic, the Black Death, created a society (Europe) that dominated the world for hundreds of years by triggering innovation, pulling millions of people out of poverty and boosting literacy. The current COVID-19 pandemic poses a critical challenge for many corporations. Innovation Leaders in those corporations have the capabilities and mindset to make a difference: they are experts in addressing the most pressing issues their corporation faces. As always, it’s important for Innovation Leaders to align with their Leadership what specific issues should be focused on. This will also…

Preventing forever experiments All of us Innovation Leaders know examples of experiments that keep going on and on. Sometimes for years. Passionate innovators in our corporation might have a great idea and the best of intentions, but occasionally they just do not come to a conclusion. There are many reasons for those delays: no time due to other priorities set by their management, the replacement of a critical collaborator, etc. As Innovation Leaders, we then help innovators to overcome those barriers, by talking to their management, by connecting them with experts, etc. There is an approach that helps to anticipate delays. It is based on securing management sponsorship and on…

How to be successful as innovation leader  When my company decided to create the position of Innovation Leader, what profile did they look for? Broad experience in healthcare to deeply understand the key issues. At that time, I had 30 years of experience with this Pharma company in sales, marketing, operations and strategy at country, regional and global level. Networks in the corporation to facilitate collaboration. In my previous jobs, I worked closely with other divisions, like manufacturing (e.g. to plan new product launches and to manage vaccine supply) and IT (e.g. to create a global, automated tender management system). Multicultural experience as the job covered most global geographies. I…

Once upon a job description There are as many job descriptions for Innovation Leaders as there are Innovation Leaders. How to create one? It doesn’t have to be complicated. Let me share my story. When “my” leadership team decided to create the role I would take on, they had a very clear rationale. When they visited countries around the globe to review local business plans, they noticed that in many countries local employees came up with innovative solutions for important business/customer problems. Although this was encouraging news, the leadership team was concerned, because they were not aware of all the innovations that went on in their organization; they realized that…

Serialization Counterfeited medicines are a dangerous problem. To help deal with this, a new technology, serialization, can now be applied. It looks like a QR code (see picture above), but contains unique information for each individual package it is printed on. A special reader can scan this serialization code and read the specific data linked to that package like the lot number, the package number, the expiration date, etc. No two packages have the same serialization code, so a counterfeited product can easily be identified. Several regulatory agencies across the globe started requiring Pharma companies to print serialization codes on the packaging of their medicines. Adding serialization codes to every…