CIC | News

On behalf of the Chemical Innovators Club, I would like to thank Jochen Stock for giving us exclusive and inspiring insights into 3M's innovation culture today. When people in the chemical industry talk about the topic of innovation culture, the name 3M usually comes up quite quickly. The best known of these is certainly the 15% rule, according to which technical employees can invest 15% of their working time in their own ideas... but as we learned today, there are many other elements. One of them is the relatively new supplier inspired innovation. This involves seeking close partnerships with suppliers. So - if you have a compelling idea Jochen is happy to be contacted. My thanks also go to the participating CIC members for the stimulating discussion after the presentation: Gideon Rath, Jens Joschek, Julia Kurtz, Holger Bartos, Michael Bretz, Uwe Michaelis, Lukas von Hippel, Klaus Kurz, Lars Hensgen, Christoph Balzarek, Dr. Matthias Loeffler, Ralf-Peter Peters, Dr. Volker Böhm, Christoph Broßmer. Josef Glaß, Managing Partner CIC

Many chemical companies use specific software tools to manage their innovation portfolio and stage-gate process. While self-built Excel tools had a significant market share a few years ago, commercial tools are now mostly in use. The range of tools has developed very dynamically in recent years. On the one hand, the functional scope of specialized innovation tools has expanded significantly. On the other hand, ERP providers often also offer a module for innovation management. In the workshop, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used tools based on a survey conducted in advance.

As a result of the EU taxonomy, the topic will have more and more guard rails from next year - but there are still many question marks in detail. Michael and Benjamin from BASF presented both the existing answers and the open questions and put them up for discussion.

Measuring innovation performance is a major challenge in innovation management as outined in https://www.springerprofessional.de/die-grosse- herausforderung-messung-des-return-on- innovation/18006654 This is especially true for long-term topics - e.g., the development of new technologies. Here, there is a lack of options to measure the long-term benefits of projects beyond relatively short-term sales. Typical KPIs such as "new product sales" often do not lead to good conclusions. In the workshop, various approaches and KPIs will be discussed with regard to their applicability in practice.

Clariant welcomed 25 CIC members at the Clariant Innovation Center in the industry park Höchst. Topics including Digital Innovation, Circular Economy, Time-to-Market, Ecosystems and Sustainability were discussed in several break out sessions. A bus tour in the industry park completed the successful day. Thank you to the Clariant team for hosting the CIC and to Josef for organising the event.

Thank you to the Evonik team for hosting and Josef for organising the annual CIC meeting at the industry park Wolfgang / Hanau. More than 20 innovation experts from the Chemical Innovators Club discussed several innovation related questions intensively and controversially at the meeting. Besides the green transition, is there any radical innovations in the chemical industry? Another topic was measuring the return on innovation. The small study carried out in advance showed that this topic is approached very differently in the participating companies. However, the focus of the meeting was clearly on innovation topics related to sustainability. The key question was how sustainability criteria can be integrated into the management of the innovation portfolio.

• How do companies innovate successfully in the chemical industry? • What works in practice - and what doesn't? These questions are the focus of the Chemical Innovator Club (CIC). With artificial intelligence, the circular economy and innovation in times of crisis, three hot topics were on the agenda in 2024. Thank you to the Chemische Fabrik Budenheim KG team and especially to Gideon Rath and Pierre-Alain Weiss for hosting the 2024 meeting. Many thanks also go to Nicole Borho from DAW SE, Aggeliki Quell, Benjamin Bergner and Michael Bretz from BASF, Sebastian Roos from Evonik and Markus Deppe from IBM Consulting for their input to the event. Dr. Josef Glass from execon partners, the organizer of the CIC, is already looking forward to the 10th anniversary meeting of the CIC in 2025.

Chemical Innovators Club