Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

In an effort to further develop and organise a structure for the notoriously challenging first step of the innovation process, next month will see expert speakers from ground breaking companies around the globe imparting knowledge on how to improve the ‘Front End of Innovation’ at the second annual conference in Austria.

The event, organised by American knowledge and skills transfer company, IIR and sponsored by Cambridge-based technology consultancy business, Sagentia is aimed at reducing the level of chaos experienced by firms going through this turbulent process. The “fuzzy” front end, as it is also known, occupies the initial stage of innovation, wherein organisations formulate a rough concept of a product, and make a decision on the value of further resource investment to develop the idea.

While the front end of the innovation process may not be the most expensive part of product development, it can be a major sinkhole for man-hours, eating into as much as 50 per cent of the overall development time. Previously regarded simply as ‘something that happens before development,” the front end has become recognised as an essential phase in the process, and has attracted considerable research into how to optimise the efficiency and productivity realised throughout.

The Front End of Innovation Europe (FEI) conference, from January 28-31 the Hilton Vienna, aims to broaden the realisation of the importance of the first step, featuring keynote speakers from industries ranging from aerospace and automotive, financial, pharma and even into food and hospitality. The discovery portion of the innovation process remains to be the source for major growth in corporations, and most companies have developed very efficient development processes for bringing incremental innovations to the market.

In contrast, few companies have an efficient front end for developing the next generation platform products. FEI Europe will enlighten attendees on the appearance of robust FEI, the latest tools and techniques used by companies to achieve success, and how companies achieve repeatable success in today’s virtual and global community.

Through an unbiased cross-industry advisory board and rigorous application process the conference offers an experience unlike any other in Europe, marrying top quality content with unparalleled networking. The organiser’s advisory board has determined today’s most desired innovation topics that address existing and future business challenges, through further research.

The team behind FEI Europe matched these cutting-edge topics with expert cross-industry speakers to create an agenda that will provide unparalleled content never seen before. The event’s keynote speakers include Clayton M. Christensen, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, founder of YO!, Simon Woodroffe, along with the GMs of LG Technology Center Europe, the CEO & Sweden President of General Motors Powertrain and CTO at Cadbury Schweppes.

FEI Europe, making its second outing this year, follows on from the success of its predecessor in the US, which celebrates its fifth anniversary in May.
The European event is partnered by PDMA, an organisation dedicated to sharing knowledge of best practices and building a professional community of people and organisations that have a stake in the researching, establishing, and promoting of best practices in the broad areas of product and services development and management.