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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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1 + 1 = 3
New innovation blog: 1+1=3
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Oscar
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…
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Herding cats
Tracking and sharing innovations Innovation is dynamic. Innovations can start every moment. They change continuously. They fail frequently. Multiply this activity across 100 countries, 10 brands, 5 divisions and its clear that an innovation leader cannot manage this number of initiatives with an Excel spreadsheet. The simple solution is to buy one of the many off the shelf software programs and roll it out across the organization. It’s fast. It has been tested. It looks professional. However, the software program may not address specific needs. Does it help the innovation leader to identify new innovations, to prioritize innovations, to track ongoing innovations, to manage Innovation Challenges/competitions, to connect innovators, to…
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Crossing industries
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…
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Got an idea. What now?
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…
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Measured
Should we measure innovation? An innovation is something that has never been done before. How do you measure something you don’t know yet? On the other hand, it’s unlikely that corporate leaders would pay us if we don’t accomplish anything. I decided to put innovation metrics in place, but wanted to avoid measuring too much and rather invest most of my time in stimulating innovation. So I needed to find something in the middle. The logical way was to go back to the two specific goals I got when I started in my Innovation Leader role: Across the organization, identify commercial innovations appropriate for global scaling Stimulate an innovation mindset,…