Why Constraints Are Good for Pharma Industry Innovation

One of the insights I am having right now in my recent reading preparations for my digital strategy degree course this summer (eek) is historically how good questions and imposed restrictions can often lead to fantastic innovation breakthroughs. Let me explain.

Former CEO Meg Whitman, who when she was CEO of Ebay, found that often good questions and restrictions actually often impose valuable constraints on your staffs’ thinking. She describes an example when she prohibited her innovation team from conducting any future business with their current customers for 12 months and challenged them on how they could make money next year when the restriction was over and challenged them to think long term. Now that’s a major constraint, right. You are now forced to sort of think outside of the box to come up with new and different ways to create value for new customers longer term

So taking the analogy of Meg Whiteman and fast forward to the current Pandemic. Maybe this event offers the Pharma Industry and Medical Innovation one of the most fantastic constraints handed to us to really think about delivering innovative digital solutions in a restrictive environment when they really require it, we know it is harder right now to reach patients face to face but maybe if we offer seamless mobile experiences, maybe we can offer empathetic solutions to patients, maybe we can really observe patients and augment our strategy for the future HCP and patient needs.

Imaginative employees will often be more likely to embrace limitations in their creative pursuits to think deeper and look outside of Pharma. Tell your employees that the current constraints will help them by ensuring focus and direction, and challenge them to take up the challenge. Rather than providing ample resources and freedom in your innovation teams, try doing the opposite: using the restriction of the Pandemic to unleash meaningful solutions and thinking about real patient needs and sustainability. This might then unlock the genie of imagination

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