BQF Innovation

The annual BQF Innovation Seminar was held in October at the Latimer Conference Centre.  The speakers included Mike Carr, Chief Scientist at BT’s research labs, Philip Anderson, Chairman of the Global Business Partnership Alliance, Kevin McFarthing, Global Director for Strategic Alliances & External Relations at Reckitt Benckiser, and Paul Sloane, head of the BQF Innovation Unit and author of the Innovative Leader. 

Mike Carr emphasised that innovative ideas can come from anywhere so you have to set your antennae to hear ‘weak signals’.  He pointed out that when it comes to research and development, finding the right question is harder than finding the right answer.  And he warned that a good idea can be thwarted at any stage of the adoption process. 

Philip Anderson discussed what makes for successful and unsuccessful business collaborations.  He shared various research findings.  Key among these were the need for shared value systems, objectives and mindsets.  He stressed that relying on the contract and the SLAs were not routes to success.  What was needed was development of trust. 

Reckitt Benckiser is a highly innovative, global company in consumer products with sales in 180 countries and net revenues in excess of £4billion.  Their brands include Cillit Bang, Vanish, Finish, Dettol, Strepsils, Airwick etc.  Kevin McFarthing explained how they have structured ‘RB-Idealink‘ to facilitate open innovation with alliance partners who have appropriate technologies, products or licensing opportunities.  They have strived to make the process easy for potential partners with simple submission processes on their website. Paul Sloane chaired the conference and gave a talk in which he stressed the need for leaders to develop the vision, culture and processes that facilitated innovation.  He gave examples of how this is done with examples from Google, Virgin, Granada, Alessi and Haier. 

The BQF Innovation Unit has regular informal meetings throughout the year as well as its annual conference.

 

 

 

 

Paul Sloane

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