Innovation Management - The online learning center for Managing Innovation.

Chronic pain affects millions of people’s lives; millions more have operations every year, needing anaesthetics and pain relief. New approaches to managing pain ranging from watching films during operations to playing with inflated rubber gloves or virtual reality games are proving powerful tools in managing pain. While drug companies may face a challenge to their markets, patients could benefit, suffering fewer adverse side effects and healing better; and health care services may be able to reduce costs. Opportunities for home based approaches may also grow.

For many European managers of R&D and Innovation Management numerous challenges arise: How can companies be globally efficient and locally effective at the same time? This is the focus of an upcoming symposium gathering leading experts in R&D.

Never has the world witnessed a large market emerge so quickly as China has. As the economy grows it is also changing. China is fast climbing the value curve, transitioning from low-cost manufacturing to innovation-led growth. In telecommunications, supercomputing, life sciences, non-fuel energy sources and “green-tech” in general, there is already a vibrant innovation/research and development (R&D) scene.

Can an organization dramatically improve the quality, speed, and profitability of their new product projects while driving down the risk of failure? Absolutely! Organizations that rely on new products, technologies, and platforms to create customer value, grow market share, enter new markets, increase their profitability, and even alter market and competitive landscapes. In this article Chester Baker, Head of Global Innovation for Abbott Nutrition shares the winning formula for driving innovation in his company.

Anyone has the raw capability to think of a great idea, but not everyone has the ability to bring ideas to fruition. It’s a process that requires vision, a strong handle on industry trends (both present and future) and risk takers willing to champion seemingly impossible feats. Most companies have innovators or teams of innovators with these qualities, but many don’t incorporate both customer feedback and customer observational research as key components for designing the next generation of product development. This article will explore the benefits of leveraging a customer-centric model to create more innovative, user-friendly devices that provide the support customers really need.

Year after year, our Global Innovation 1000 study has demonstrated that it is not how much companies spend on research and development that determines success — what really matters is how those R&D funds are invested in talent, process, and tools. In addition to our recurring analysis of R&D spending trends, our eighth annual study of the world’s 1000 largest corporate R&D spenders focuses on the “fuzzy front-end” of the innovation process — the tools, mechanisms and networks companies use to generate ideas and effectively convert them into commercialization projects.

Open innovation crowd sourcing methods, when applied to the right problem, can effectively extend the solution provider search beyond the boundaries of an industry. This article presents the application of a targeted broadcast crowd sourcing method to identify unobvious solution providers for a German chain-drive industry consortium. The majority of solutions submitted through this method were previously unknown to the consortium. This evaluation demonstrates the power of open crowd sourcing to provide solutions from discontinuous industries and how effective crowd sourcing can be in open innovation.

GlaxoSmithKline has announced plans to be more open about its clinical trial data, be more transparent to the public and actively collaborate with scientists and firms outside GSK to find new drugs to treat the diseases plaguing the world, from novel antibiotics to cures for malaria and tuberculosis.

Born from its sister event, FEI: Front End of Innovation, BEI: Back End of Innovation is where the story is. It’s where inspiration meets execution. It’s where the entire innovation process comes to life, from leadership & organizational structure, to portfolio management & processes, to managing the eco-system of suppliers, to commercialization, and finally to [...]

Companies are better today at predicting consumer behavior than at any moment in time. How do they do it? Big data. In this article Saman Musacchio takes a look at the latest research and development trends and what they mean for the future of innovation.

“What cannot be measured cannot be managed”. The pressure to measure the results of innovation is gaining ground, but has been a challenge for many innovation managers. To get past this challenge, Caspar van Rijnbach suggests using the six W’s to define the right measurements for you.

James Gardner’s new book takes a look at innovation from another perspective – it’s not always about new ideas but how new ideas are made useful. In this book review René van der Hulst walks us through the three mechanisms Gardner has identified that accelerate acceptance of new products or services and increase competitive boundaries.

It’s going to take a world of collaboration, openess and partnerships between companies, governments, and non-governmental organizations to be able to solve mega-issues such as fossil fuels dependency and feeding the planet, according to Jim Weigand, president of sustainable solutions at DuPont. Secondly, on March the fifth, the Polymer Science Park (PSP) in Zwolle, the Netherlands opened. It’s an open innovation centre founded by DSM, Wavin, universities and government to become the knowledge and innovation entity within the polymer and coating sector.

Recent data from the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) shows a sharp rebound in planned R&D spending. After the past few years of operating with reduced budgets and staff, companies are finally starting to make the R&D investments they need to ramp up the innovation and product development activities that will help them achieve their growth goals.

China’s ambition of become an innovation-oriented country by 2020 is an important part of the nation’s long-term strategic plan. Being the second largest science and technology thesis producer, and running the second largest economy next to the US, a lot of things are happening in China. Innovation Management spoke to Professor Richard Li-Hua, word-leading expert on innovation about his thoughts on China’s innovation.