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Innovation Management

Coloplast: Innovating innovation

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Company introduction................................................................................................................3
Suggestions for Coloplast’s Innovation Performance................................................................5
Suggestion 1: Inclusion of Artificial Intelligence in its Healthcare devices:.........................5
Suggestion 2: Radical Innovation through Healthcare lab inventions:..................................6
Suggestion 3: Innovation for Internal Development through Patents:...................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction

A long term success and growth of a firm significantly depend on its ability to produce

innovation. It is argued in the study of Bunduchi (2017) that innovation is a process of

introducing something new like a new product, service or process, which eventually

contributes to the betterment of life and offers value to the customers. The proposed case

study analysis provides the innovation process of Coloplast to become a market leader.

Further, some suggestions to lead innovation and competitive position of the firm are also

provided in the analysis, followed by the conclusion.

Company introduction

Founded in 1954 by nurse Elise Sorensen, Coloplast has now become one of the leading

healthcare firms, which serves the market with innovative and high technology healthcare

products. Ostomy, urology, continence, and wound care are the main serving area of the firm.

Process of Innovation in Coloplast:

By focusing on small setups of units, the firm leads incremental innovation. The company has

mainly strengthened its capabilities in the technology innovation from its origin. From the

case study, it is evident that as a consequence of its devotion to R&D with its main plant in

Denmark, the firm has been able to make advancements in environmentally friendly skin

adhesives based on superior technology. In the same process, Coloplast has unveiled its 2012

strategy, which is identifying innovation leadership as a critical success factor to achieve

ambitious goals and generate revenue. It is based on radical innovation. In the present

competitive business environment also, Coloplast is managing the process of innovation

successfully by adopting different types of innovation from different sources in terms of

customer-driven innovation and collaborating with professionals as well as through open and

market-driven innovations and achieving commercial excellence.

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The company has adopted open innovation to utilize all the external and internal ideas and

efficiency in the most optimum manner. According to Bigliardi, et al., (2021), open

innovation is a necessity for cooperation among dispersed but interdependent people, who

relies on the capacities of each other to create and extract value for the firm. For example,

Coloplast has adopted the strategy of integration of external ideas and approaches to lead

innovation in the firm. It is evident from the case that end-users, nurses, and surgeons

contributed ideas and information that was crucial in creating innovation of new medical

devices. Coloplast, on the other hand, thought that by including nurses in this way, new

goods would be improved and product preferences would be developed. Here, the company

has expanded its R&D process and ensured that Coloplast’s Ostomy Forum (COF) will be

managed smoothly by giving a sense of responsibility and commitment to the nurses (From

Case study). In addition, marketing also played an increasingly important part in the

innovation process, since it was in charge of recognising and evaluating client demands

(Chen, Yin & Mei, 2018). Marketing served as a gatekeeper, but the primary goal of R&D

was to transform recognized client demands into new goods.

Apart from this, another strategy to lead innovation in the firm with an open approach is

acquisition. The company has executed innovation in its distribution and supply chain

management and focused on the expansion of business in the global market through

innovation. It is discussed by Chen, Kale & Hoskisson (2018) that in the field of open

innovation, acquisition strategy enables the firms to integrate the strengths of different firms

to deal with the market challenges and create value for the customers. As evident in the case

study, even though it faces legal issues in the United States, Coloplast continues to innovate

and develop mainly in the USA market. The acquisition of Comfort Medical was in line with

Coloplast's strategy of targeting patients directly. The effective use of the ‘Analyse, Improve,

and Monitor’ (AIM) process for the development of a new product along with FIGARO
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(From Innovation to Accelerated Global Roll-Out) become an integral part of Coloplast’s

innovation model.

Apart from this, incubation is another innovation strategy in the company. The incubation

process in the business can be defined as the strategy to accelerate growth by putting

innovation and creative ideas in the less mature market (Mungila Hillemane, Satyanarayana

& Chandrashekar, 2019). Thus, the company targeted different interesting areas beyond its

traditional market, such as innovation in medical monitoring, biomaterial engineering and

medical delivery system. In addition, NEBULA is another innovation process in Coloplast to

lead to success. To utilize the opportunities of technological and market innovation, one of

the significant strategies is radical innovation. Under this process, Coloplast opens new

business labs with a distinctive focus and commercial mindset. However, the company failed

to implement it due to a lack of necessary information and documentation to integrate the

latest technology with the traditional approaches. Though the firm has executed innovation in

its business process efficiency, it needs some further improvements in its innovation process

to resolve the issues of efficiency and data management and foster business growth with cost

efficiency to ensure sustainable growth.

Suggestions for Coloplast’s Innovation Performance

Suggestion 1: Inclusion of Artificial Intelligence in its Healthcare devices:

With a zeal for making the lives of individuals better and producing the best medical care

technology, Coloplast has always focussed on innovation at different stages of business. To

continue its performance, it is suggested to Coloplast focus on artificial intelligence in its

healthcare devices to deal with the barriers of high growth, which is related to the open

innovation and technology push type of innovation. According to Terzidis & Vogel, (2018)

technology push innovation is to expand the limited product line with the inclusion of

emerging technologies faster than the competitors with user interface features. Coloplast has

introduced several innovations in the case of bladder cancer, colon cancer or Crohn’s disease,
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which is an intestinal condition characterized by chronic inflammation, an ostomy. Now, the

firm should take advantage of adopting artificial intelligence technology in its current product

technology. For example, in order to provide ostomy care to the patients more accurately and

efficiently, its R&D department should collaborate with technical experts and external

professionals in artificial intelligence. These experts can integrate this technology into the

available devices to synthesise the disease with multiple sources and analyse the changes in

the body within a fraction of seconds, to offer medical help accordingly. Here, wearable

sensors, medical imagining, the internet of things, etc. are some further technical innovations

that can be integrated with wearable bags for ostomy patients. Further, for the assessment of

the wound and skin care and the sensitive ratio in the body of patients, artificial intelligence

technology would also help. This will offer a comfortable life to patients. The firm should

exploit external innovation in the technical field. Here the technology push innovation should

be implemented faster than the competitors and the focus should be on launching user-

friendly medical care devices to provide utmost care with artificial intelligence (Migliori, et

al., 2020). In addition, the firm already has a sound acquisition strategy, which will allow it to

manage quick distribution and supply chains to strengthen its competitive advantage through

innovation.

Suggestion 2: Radical Innovation through Healthcare lab inventions:

Another suggestion to Coloplast is to implement a new strategy of healthcare lab invention

based on its previous strategic approach of NEBULA, which failed. This new approach will

help to foster radical innovation in the firm. In the study of Hu & Hughes (2020), it is

mentioned that radical innovation is a critical approach that enables the company executives

to leverage the core competencies to take advantage of market opportunities in the coming

future. In regards to Coloplast innovation, the company has utilized different business

processes and market opportunities through commercialization, acquisition and integration of

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professional knowledge. Now there is a need to focus on figuring out new technologies and

applications to lead to future success and growth.

To ignite the radical innovation in the firm, the management of Coloplast should introduce a

new healthcare lab with the integration of professional experts, IT technician and experts in

sensor technology (Xie, Wang & Zeng, 2018). Here the medical devices in the lab should be

produced with the purpose of commercialization and the focus should be on merging two

different technologies to provide the best care for cancer-related diseases. For example,

integration of ostomy and urology medical devices with telemedicine care with sensor

technology. This will help to provide sensitive data about the patients so that timely medical

help can be offered to them. Here in-depth research and analysis are a must for the experts to

develop a new healthcare lab with a clear goal. This radical innovation will displace the

current product line and alter the purpose of devices to some extent. For example, the

inclusion of telemedicine technology in the healthcare lab will enable the patients to

minimize their load of using different healthcare facilities for personal protection. For the

success of this healthcare lab and generate innovation, the management should create a new

panel of experts with the participative leadership approach to lead collaboration positively.

Here, to ensure the success of this innovation, information sharing between the traditional

development department and personnel of the new healthcare lab should be clear, transparent

and comprehensive.

Suggestion 3: Innovation for Internal Development through Patents:

Apart from the external innovation and radical, it is also essential for the firms to focus on

internal development and strengthen the core capabilities to lead the success in the long term.

It is suggested to Coloplast to implement the internal innovation and development through a

patent strategical approach. According to Sangjic, Jinwoo & Yeong-wha (2019), a patent is a

limited-time exclusive right to utilise an invention inside the jurisdiction, where the

application is filed. Patents are given for new, innovative (non-obvious) inventions that have
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practical use. It is supported by Geum & Kim, (2020) that to get long term rewards on the

produced technology and products or process of a firm, the patent is a critical strategy. The

patent is one of the important innovation approaches, which can be analysed objectively. By

having a patent of technology, or a device, any third party cannot use it under their

specification and cannot gain benefits from it (Sangjic, Jinwoo & Yeong-wha, 2019). It is

suggested to Coloplast that along with acquisition and collaboration with the professionals, it

should focus on the patent technology to a high extent to lead to innovation and growth. To

measure the objectivity of patent technology the firm can create a comparison by positioning

patent and technology attractiveness by placing them on the X and Y-axis.

The patent data is also valuable for the company to evaluate the activities of competitors and

focus on internal performance. For example, as the company has implemented acquisitions in

the US market to gain opportunities, it should introduce its technology under the company’s

patent. Further, while introducing its new radical innovation and devices with the integration

of a telemedicine approach, patent innovation will help the firm to strengthen the brand value

in the fostering market and restrict competitors to gain advantages of innovation produced by

the company (Bigliardi, et al., 2021). The firm has an impressive organisational structure,

which ignites commercial excellence in the firm. If the inclusion of a patent strategic

approach with each specific technology will be done while commercialization and

acquisition, the performance of the company will enhance in the internal market. This will

eventually offer a long term sustainable competitive advantage (Migliori, et al., 2020). Thus,

it will also help to create a comparison of numbers of company patents and the attractiveness

of technology among competitors and the internal department may focus on the production of

better technology and medical devices.

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Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that despite having a wide range of innovative processes in

Coloplast, the management should foster some different innovations. Some of these

innovations are external and open innovation through artificial intelligence inclusion, radical

innovation to introduce telemedical in its new healthcare lab and patent innovation.

References

Bigliardi, B, Ferraro, G, Filippelli, S & Galati, F 2021, ‘The past, present and future of open

innovation’, European Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 1130-1161.

Bunduchi, R 2017, ‘Legitimacy‐seeking mechanisms in product innovation: A qualitative

Study’, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 315-342.

Case Study: Coloplast: Innovating innovation, pp. 105-133

Chen, J, Yin, X & Mei, L 2018, ‘Holistic Innovation: An Emerging Innovation Paradigm’,

International Journal of Innovation Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-13.

Chen, Z, Kale, P & Hoskisson, RE 2018, ‘Geographic overlap and acquisition pairing’,

Strategic Management Journal, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 329-355.

Geum, Y & Kim, G, 2020, ‘How to identify promising chances for technological innovation:

Keygraph-based patent analysis’, Advanced Engineering Informatics, vol. 46.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aei.2020.101155.

Hu, Q & Hughes, M 2020, ‘Radical innovation in family firms: a systematic analysis and

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6, pp. 1199-1234.

Migliori, S, Massis, AD, Maturo, F & Paolone, F 2020, ‘How does family management affect

innovation investment propensity? The key role of innovation impulses’, Journal of Business

Research, vol. 113, pp. 243-256

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Mungila Hillemane, BS, Satyanarayana, K & Chandrashekar, D 2019, ‘Technology business

incubation for start-up generation: A literature review toward a conceptual framework’,

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 25, no. 7, pp. 1471-

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Healthcare-IoT Convergence Service by Patent Analysis’, Journal of Scientific and Industrial

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Terzidis, O & Vogel, L 2018, ‘A Unified Model of the Technology Push Process and Its

Application in a Workshop Setting;. In: Presse, A & Terzidis, O eds, Technology

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73509-2_6

Xie, X, Wang, L & Zeng, S 2018, ‘Inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and firms'

radical innovation: A moderated mediation analysis’, Journal of Business Research, vol. 90,

pp. 295-306.