March 26, 2008. Shanghai campus - The intersection between marketing and innovation, and how these concepts affect business development, were the focus of discussion today at CEIBS' full-day conference entitled: "Marketing, Innovation, and Business Growth." The event, organized by the school's Center of Marketing and Innovation (CMI), featured eight expert speakers and attracted more than 150 attendees.
The conference opened with a welcome address by CEIBS President Zhu Xiaoming, also Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. "Today’s conference supports CEIBS' mission to establish a platform allowing scholars and business leaders from specific industries to share their research achievements and experience," he said. "China's rapidly developing economy is benefiting the entire global economy. As specific industries and even individual companies worldwide grasp the opportunities to be innovative and to grow and improve, their success is a shared success."
CMI Director Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, professor of Marketing and Innovation Management at CEIBS, next spoke on how "too much of a good thing" in marketing and innovation can actually hinder business growth. Using the example of a function-heavy mobile phone, he asked 'Who uses its full array of options?' Instead of focusing on adding unwanted features to products, he urged companies to carefully assess how products can actually be used to solve problems in customers' lives. Companies that do this are engaging in 'outcome-based innovation,' he explalined, adding that successful Chinese companies are now using this strategy to expand abroad.
In his talk, Director of Business Development (China) for Dow Chemical Co. Andy Richards outlined the qualities that characterize growth in China. "It is not just growth," he said, "it is evolving growth." He emphasized that companies need strong vision in order to grow, but warned firms against cannibalizing existing business solutions while preparing for the future. He urged companies to prepare to grow both in qualitative terms - such as building the company culture -- and quantitative terms.
Fostering Innovation
" Pharmaceutical Innovation in the 21st Century," was the topic addressed by keynote speaker Sidney Taurel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Elly Lilly & Co. Looking beyond the pharmaceutical industry, Taurel introduced the necessary conditions that must be in place to foster innovation in any business scenario. In order for China to reach the next stage of its development, he listed the following requirements: ideas must be allowed to flow freely among talented individuals; innovation must be rewarded; and innovation must win the confidence of consumers. "These are an all-or-nothing proposition," Taurel said. "These conditions must all be present, or innovation will not happen."
One theme voiced by experts throughout the conference was that businesses must seek ways to innovate in order to take full advantage of the opportunities now offered by the China market. Simon Benjamin, partner of IBM Global Service (China), illustrated how innovative improvements to IBM's standard business model recently helped the company to discover promising new opportunities outside the traditional premium markets that MNCs normally occupy. Instead, IBM used innovation to identify new growth potential in the mass market sector.
Sharing first-hand experience from Dow Corning, company Greater China President Tom Cook told how the company used innovation to lift itself out of flat-lining sales. Dow Corning's solution, he explained, was to provide products and services to a diverse client base by running “two totally different ways of doing business within the same company."
Secrets of Success
Another underlying theme of the conference centered on how best to structure a business to promote innovation. Roche Pharmaceutical R&D Centre Director Andreas Tschirky opened his talk, which covered his experiences in organizing an R&D operation in China, with the comment "crazy scientists have to think about the market." Bridging the link between creative thinking and scientific experimentation and practical product development is particularly challenging in the pharmaceutical sector, he said, where the lead time for product development and approvals can take up to 15 years and can cost US$1 billion.
Drawing upon 17 years of management experience in Asia to share his secrets of success, Jorg Ostertag, president of Lilly China, highlighted the need for managers to continually invest in the people working for and with your organization. He pointed out that "a leader delivers goals by making other people successful."
For a full article highlighting learning points from the "Marketing, Innovation, and Business Growth" CMI Conference, see the Spring 2008 edition of The LINK magazine.
