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…

Innovative scientific education One challenge all marketers face is how to engage customers in a relevant and impactful way. Think doctors at large congresses. One can only attract or keep customers engaged at a booth for a while with publication reprints, videos or offering a cup of coffee. Inspiration can come from the game industry. For a doctors audience, you need to integrate of course relevant medical-scientific content. Two applied gamification examples: POKÉMON GO- inspired. The diabetes team in Ireland created an educational concept, based on this game. Congress attendees downloaded an app on their smartphone. Then they had to locate and “capture” about 30 signs within the massive congress…

Innovating with remote customers You are an innovator in a global corporation. Your customers are spread all over the world. How do you engage with them to come up with innovative solutions for their needs? Of course, it’s best to work through colleagues that are located close to where the customer lives. But there are occasions where it’s hard to meet with customers, like those that live in remote geographies. Travel costs may limit the number of times you can run innovative ideas by those customers. I recall an innovation session with about 30 global veterinary colleagues in the Netherlands. They had received the assignment to quickly come up with…

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…

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…

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…

New innovation blog: 1+1=3

Annual Innovation Awards Annual awards for innovation are the best and worst thing around. Awards ceremonies can be a time consuming show. Awards can be a demotivator for those who do not win. Innovation shouldn’t be a once a year event. Still, I recommend organizing annual Awards, as they are a high impact opportunity to promote innovation in the corporation. How did we organize them? Once a year, I asked the commercial leaders for their most critical business/customer challenges that required innovative solutions. I secured the final challenge selection and sponsorship from the President. Proposals were solicited through broad global communication. A jury selected the winning innovations, based on specific…

Combining capabilities from different industries It’s hard to get collaboration across silos in a corporation. But it’s potentially very rewarding. It’s even more difficult to get collaboration across industries. But potentially even more rewarding! A company may have the smartest people of the industry working for them, but more than 99% of the smart people in the world are not working for them. Those 99% also may have unique, complementary capabilities. Innovators can take this as a challenge to reach out to partners in other industries and try to create a win-win-win for their joint customers, for their business and for their partner’s business. A great example is a partnership…

How to find support for your innovative idea. Let’s say you are in IT or manufacturing. You believe you have an exciting innovative idea. How do you get the sponsorship to try it out? I have met many passionate innovators who were not part of the business or commercial part of the company. They were really enthusiastic about an innovative solution they had come up with and had often pursued testing it on their own. Some got support and resources to experiment from their manager. Some even demonstrated that their innovation really worked. But then they became frustrated that nobody else was interested, that they couldn’t “sell” it to the…