Elsie Tsui & Grace Lau
Senior Consultant & Managing Consultant
atrain
Tsui started the talk with a case study of pharmaceutical company Eisai, who were facing numerous issues, such as low approval rates, employees who are not proactive and limited development opportunities for younger employees.
When the new CEO took over from his father, the company changed direction to encourage employees trying new things and get them thinking about the future of the company. He appointed change agents, who were trained and developed to drive change. Innovation was key in getting his organisation to where it is today.
Lau first emphasised the importance of innovation, proving her point by getting almost everyone in the audience to raise their hands when asked if they would like to see more change in their organisations. Additionally, according to Lau, if you want to grow your business and attract millennials, innovation is absolutely necessary.
This begs the question, why are companies not becoming more innovative? Crowd sourced answers included that the CEO wasn’t supportive, don’t know how, no time, and budget constraints, among others.
By using the ‘Innovate’ model developed by atrain, Tsui and Lau emphasised that innovation is achievable for anyone. The model is developed to serve as a checklist for organisations to see how open and nurturing they are in relation to innovation.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
