BACK TO BASICS For Milan Ivosevic, each year it comes down to prioritizing investments relative to the most lucrative opportunities while deploying both the latest tools and capable teams to drive aggressive business growth and profitability.
Milan Ivosevic, VP R&D and Innovations, CooperSurgical
Some fundamentals on what makes a new product innovation successful do not change. Everybody’s talking about AI today, however, it is just a tool although a powerful one. In a big enterprise, we already have a portfolio of different products. Sometimes we are incentivized to innovate on our existing portfolio, build synergies, look at the trends, and stay on top. In another case, a bold move to disrupt ourselves is the best way forward. Nevertheless, the story about innovation from that fundamental point of view of being able to meaningfully differentiate your business and your products, doesn’t change. So last year, this year, and next year, it all obeys the same fundamentals. I’m in the MedTech industry, more specifically women’s health and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART); this industry is currently booming. We have a lot of opportunities and aspirations. That means that every year, we need to be selective and careful about prioritizing our internal and external investments to recoup the most from the available opportunities out there.
PRIORITIZING OPPORTUNITIES If you are coming from an established, public company, typically the business comes first as reflected by its growth potential and key revenue drivers. Everybody is looking for opportunities that yield the biggest return and the fastest growth. Going back to that prioritization, if we’re doing it right, we could end up with an extensive laundry list of short, mid-, and long- term projects and opportunities. We then assess those opportunities using several key filters. One obvious metric is business viability, as defined by profitability and growth potential of the envisioned solution or product. The other filters often gravitate around the technical feasibility including our ability to deliver a meaningful solution that is desirable and scalable. In the end, it’s imperative to put everything in the context of yet another important metric which is time-to-market in order to adequately balance the spread of our investments, resources and expected returns.
FEI 2024 & Key Innovation Perspectives
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