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 colleague in Vietnam learned about this innovative solution and applied it to a similar access challenge for one of her vaccines for adults. Instead of a bank providing a loan, an employer (a large factory) provided this service to those employees that wanted to be vaccinated but couldn’t afford it. The employer paid for the vaccine and deducted small amounts from the employee’s salary over 12 months. Another win-win-win: viral protection for the patient, healthier employees for the employer, access for the Pharma company. Thousands of patients got life saving protection against a virus that causes cancer.
- A marketing colleague in Mexico applied this concept again differently, in this case to address a lack of patients adherence to their diabetes medicine. The marketer noticed that patients did not buy the large packs, for short term cash flow reasons and often forgot to refill their prescription when they ran out of pills. The innovative solution: patients who chose to buy a large pack with their credit card didn’t need to pay the interest if they delayed payment (the Pharma company covered this). Again a win for the patients (better diabetes control), a win for the credit card company (interest payments), a win for the Pharma company (better patients adherence due to less frequent refills resulting in patients less often running out of pills).
A few learnings:
- Documenting the learnings of each initiative ensures that subsequent innovators take advantage of these learnings. (In the first example, it took over 2 years before the innovation reached success).
- Connecting the innovators who work on similar initiatives facilitates sharing learnings and makes them internal consultants for each other.
- Creating a Center of Excellence accelerates global scaling of the innovation (in the above case, it was a collaborative, open minded expert with knowledge of the financial industry).
As Steven Johnson said:
“If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I supported and encouraged the first team that created an innovation to experiment. When they succeeded, I shared the concept and made connections with innovators who experimented with a similar concept. And I worked with the Leadership team to create a Center of Excellence to help accelerate scaling of the innovation across the corporation.
More reading on this: Gorgeous networks that help us understand the world
More blogs? Click here: Wim Vandenhouweele
Any thoughts or additional experience? Please share below!