• Structure

    Strings attached

    Investing effectively in innovation Innovation needs resources: time, people, passion … and budgets. Many innovators do not need large amounts of money. Certainly not in the early stages, when ideas are run by a few customers and key assumptions are checked. In my experience, budgets for these early stage experiments were easily provided by local (operational, country) management. In some cases, local management didn’t have the resources, or didn’t want to invest in the innovation. This could be because the the innovation was not addressing a priority issue for their part of the organization. However, some of those innovations did have potential value for the broader corporation. In that case,…

  • Tactics

    Gamification

    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…

  • Tactics

    So far and still so close

    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…

  • Structure

    Regarding silos

    Collaboration for innovation across divisions Many wars have been won through “divide and rule”. Successful innovation in corporations is just the opposite: “collaborate and win”. When employees from different departments meet and bring together their expertise and networks, magic can happen. In practice, it’s a bit more complicated. How to find the right collaborators in the corporate maze? How to secure sponsorship from leaders in other divisions? How to reward collaboration across divisions? An example. The IT organization had created a small team (3 people) in the IT hub in the Czech Republic. Their assignment was to create innovative, structured IT experiments in healthcare, based on cutting edge technologies. They…

  • Structure

    Is it a test, an experiment or a pilot?

    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…

  • Tactics

    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…

  • Concept

    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…

  • Structure

    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…

  • Structure

    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).…

  • Tactics

    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…