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Live from FEI EMEA: World Class Innovation in China: The Search for Disruptive New Products & Services

Posted by on 28 February 2012
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The first key note was presented by John van der Linden, Technology General Manager Oral Care Asia, Procter & Gamble. He started the conference day by talking about Consumer Centric Innovation based on his experience with P&G, providing examples from his life in China.

Consumer is Boss


Consumers have different mind-sets and desires and show different habits in various parts of the world with regional specifics. You really need to know what they are actually looking for to make sure that your innovation has a chance to successfully penetrate the market. But what consumers say is not necessarly wht they do and think.

He moved on to talk about different Innovation Types, differentiating between
  • Commercial Innovation - no product changes
  • Incremental/ sustained - structured and "predictable" improvements
  • Disruptive- Business model impact implying change of rules, unpredictable

Chinese show a different mind-set and behaviour compared to Western people which can be realized in everyday's situations, also the innovation culture can be characterized differently. John van der Linden lined out various examples, he stated the Chinese Innovation culture to be rather disruptive since there is lots of room for it. At the end of his talk he provided some recommendations how to avoid a cultural clash.

About the Author:

Frauke Lohr is running her own consulting business named Comsciencia, targeting customers from industry, academia as well as politics with special focus on innovation topics. She is currently attending the 6th annual Front End of Innovation EMEA in Z'rich, Switzerland on February 27-29, 2012, and covering the event live via the FEI Blog and Twitter.

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