A NEW MODIFIED TOTAL FRONT END FRAMEWORK FOR INNOVATION: NEW INSIGHTS FROM HEALTH RELATED INDUSTRIES

This paper explores the front end innovation activities in a multinational Global Healthcare Company (GHC). A questionnaire was designed and distributed to front end innovators from 20 operating companies to understand team composition, essential skill sets, and the methodology used to assess customer needs, generate ideas, and define the selection criteria used during the go/no go decision. For each category the current state and best practice (based on the views of the individual respondents) for front end innovation was analyzed and reported in this paper. The results of this study reflect the opinions and suggestions of 37 respondents (23 that were at directorship level or above). These results were amalgamated and used to develop existing models of innovation to produce a framework (termed the Total Front End Framework (TFEF)) that should be useful for both senior managers and innovation teams to optimize their activities and increase the efficiency of the innovation process.