What’s the difference? I got a couple of questions about what both acronyms mean. It’s simple: FEI is the Front End of Innovation, BEI stands for the Back End of Innovation. They represent the two big blocks of the innovation journey: the early stages and the late stages. There are many different definitions of each block and the blocks often overlap. Typically, they include the following stages: FEI: the more unstructured stages, like ideation and experimentation; BEI: the more structured stages, like pilots and commercialization. The specific definition of each is not that important. The main value of defining these 2 categories is that innovation broadly requires 2 kinds of…

Innovation Leaders, unite! This year, tens of times every day, someone refers to the “new normal”: in publications, on TV, in webcasts. But what is normal? One definition is “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern“ Because of COVID-19, we have certainly stopped conforming to some regular patterns. We do things we never did before like wearing a mask. We changed habits like going out for dinner in restaurants. We changed our shopping routines and replaced some of them with internet shopping. But we still do many of the same things we always did, like watching TV and listening to music. Long after COVID-19, some things will stay different…

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…