Innovation Outlook

Contributed by: Nina Goodrich, VP Innovation, Alcan Inc.,USA 

Growth through innovation is easy to say, and not so easy to do. While there are some great ideas from key innovation thought leaders it often requires some adaptation to turn the ideas into practical tools.  

In this column I propose to examine some of the ideas that have been helpful in creating a value innovation culture and strategy at Alcan. I would welcome feedback on these ideas and additional suggestion from readers. Alcan has created an Internal Value Innovation Process (VIP^SM) that was written up in the March/April 2007 issue of Research Technology Management and is posted on the Pure Insight site. It provides pretty detailed information for those of you that want more than can be addressed in these columns. Download a copy of “What does your most important Customer Want” 

The first concept I want to address is from Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor in The Innovator’s Solution published in 2003 by the Harvard Business School Press. 

Christensen talks about understanding the “job” a product is hired to do. 

In the case of packaging, perhaps we should be willing to understand and create people-centered packaging opportunities. Increasing compliance and helping patients to manage their diseases with existing therapies could create significant value. 

We need to understand the challenges for patients and caregivers and develop packaging to meet these needs. This may seem like an ambitious task for packaging to achieve alone, but innovation cannot be done without daring to look ahead and think big. We have the tools to meet the needs, what I am advocating is a re-assessment of the role that packaging can play in health care management 

In the past packaging has been hired for brand recognition and product protection. In the future packaging can be hired for product security, disease management and compliance. The technology enablers exist today. Advances in smart options, web enabled links, indicators and printed electronics make a variety of features possible. The key is in understanding which features will help patients, their caregivers and retailers deliver superior value. In packaging we tend to think of products in terms of features, such as child resistance and/or senior friendly or we think about packaging by format (bottles, blisters, vials etc) The way in which manufacturers think of packaging and how people interpret their experiences with drugs and their packaging have very little to do with each other. Patients often react emotionally to drugs and packaging functionality is only a part of the experience. If we believe that patients hire products to do jobs, then can packaging be hired to do more than protect the product? 

Contributed by: David Thomas, European Innovation Manager,
Masterfoods, UK

At the beginning of my career, I had a strong desire to travel, something that has never left me. One of my earliest trips, I found myself trekking through rainforest in northern Thailand, and as part of our small group, I got to know Bob, a Canadian who had explored more countries than years lived, an impressive feat for someone not too far away from retirement. Whilst trekking one morning Bob remarked, ‘Well David, wherever you go, there you are!’. In the intervening 15 years, I find myself revisiting this phrase, it’s a lot deeper than it first appears.

A few years later, I took part on a training course that involved crossing a red line, I still have the 15cm piece of red plastic today to serve as a reminder. The red line makes visible those times in our life when we need to lead the way and cross over into a space where life is not as comfortable or relaxed.

In January of this year, I was co-training Masterfoods’ ‘Consumer Driven Design’ course with a large group of associates - something that I had done a number of times over before. However this year instead of the comfortable interviewing of each other, we arranged for real interviews with real consumers to take place during the evening of the first day.

The training started well, but as the deadline drew ever closer, the tension in the group grew, to such an extent that I could clearly see the ‘red line’ that my group needed to cross. Now this was not a dramatic, “do or die” red line, but there was real tension that needed discussion before the crossing could be made.

The following morning in the review, there was a buzz, generated from the previous nights interactions which added greatly to the experience of all.

Working in the front end of innovation, as opposed to further downstream, there are more places that you can go to seek fresh new perspectives on the challenges that our businesses face - such as talking directly with our customers. But with this freedom, comes ‘a not so obvious’ responsibility to lead and cross those red lines such that the new perspectives we talk about can be experienced in reality.

So the next time you are tackling an often-familiar challenge, where do you need to go, and more importantly will you choose to cross that red line, stepping into the less known, and actually go there?