Ideas from the incubator

Using black and red pens, Luc van der Heyden jots down the team members’ ideas and criticisms onto a flip chart. Key words and graphs soon cover the entire page. On this October afternoon, the team of “idea champion” Sabine Hartwig is engaged in a heated debate at the Innospire bootcamp as they refine their presentation of an innovation project from the healthcare sector.

There's an atmosphere of concentration and constructive criticism as the team members prepare for the big final round in December, when the grand jury chaired by Merck’s top management will decide whether the project will receive funding for the idea’s further development.

Merck’s process for promoting innovative product ideas is known as Innospire. The process often results in projects that extend across business units and pool expertise in interdivisional teams. The name of the process, Innospire, combines the words “innovation” and “inspiration,” which are the program’s main driving forces. According to Ulrich Betz from Merck Serono, Merck has been using this tool since 2009.

Innospire was originally conceived by Betz, who based it on a similar process used in the telecommunications sector. The idea was subsequently enhanced in a joint project between the Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals business sectors, incorporating the experience gained during a previous idea competition within Chemicals. Betz is now managing the project in its third year in cooperation with Michael Gerards from Merck Chemicals.

At the bootcamps, experts from inside and outside the company provide the diverse mix of teams with extensive support so that they can turn the innovative ideas into business plans. However, these ideas are by no means abstract visions unrelated to market needs; they are specifically designed to meet the demands expected for the years ahead. This approach has certainly paid off.

“The first products to result from Innospire will reach the market in 2012,” says Betz. So far, a total of ten projects developed over the past two years have advanced to the implementation phase. If everything goes well, all of the associated applications and products will be available for sale by no later than 2020.

The path from an initial idea to a prospective top selling product in the Merck portfolio begins with suggestions submitted by employees from the company’s various business sectors throughout the world. Almost 500 ideas were collected during the submission period in 2011, says Gerards.

A total of 18 of these projects were selected for presentation by the idea providers at “marketplaces” in Darmstadt, Boston, Geneva, and on the Merck intranet, where the innovators solicited the support of specialists from the company. The employees decide for themselves in which projects they wish to take part, says Betz. He points out that this and the interdivisional structure are the defining features of the Innospire process.

In 2011, six projects succeeded in obtaining support at the marketplaces for further funding. The projects’ innovations affect very different areas, including health care, environmental protection, and energy generation. The core teams encompass a total of around 30 employees who are also taking part in the two Innospire bootcamps, which are three-day events held to promote the development of the ideas into viable business plans.