Investing in Innovation and IP
Promoting a culture of innovation can help an organization prosper. This is certainly true for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and SMEs alike, as Ralph Cunningham discovers.
RA founder has so many things to think about as they try to get their business up and running. So many in fact, that business owners often overlook intellectual property (IP) at the start of their enterprises.
The early days of a business are frantically busy, and everything comes with a financial cost. Hiring accountants, opening offices, installing robust IT systems, and identifying sales approaches and platforms all make their case in concrete ways. Hearing advice about the need for establishing IP protections can fall on deaf ears. Filings cost money and a founder with an idea can be short-sighted about the speed with which that idea should be protected. Even for those founders who are aware of IP, the costs associated can fall far down the list of spending priorities.
However, as participants in the panel session, IP Lessons and Best Practices from Award Winning Start-ups, Entrepreneurs, and SMEs (Wednesday May 17, 2:30 pm–3:00 pm) will hear, there are significant incentives for new companies to develop and implement an IP strategy, beyond simply protecting their ideas and their brands. Prioritizing IP is at the foundation for a culture of innovation.
The journey from idea to new company to an organization that fosters innovation is a straight line, if you are looking for it. How does an entrepreneur follow this path? How do brand owners build the infrastructure to create an environment that encourages employees to take on a mindset that will propel the business to success? These are among the questions the panel will look to answer, led by moderator Candice Kwok, Partner, Squire Patton Boggs (Singapore).
“There has to be a participatory element to innovation. It can't just be founder-driven if you want to grow,” Ms. Kwok says.
The panelists come from RAYCAN Technology Co., Ltd., a Chinese medical technology company, and DBS, the biggest financial institution in Singapore. The conversations will be an exchange of best practices, boots-on-the-ground experiences, and idea sharing about how best to cultivate an organization that makes room for innovation while still moving a growing business forward.
“There has to be a participatory element to innovation. It can't just be founder-driven if you want to grow.”
- Candice Kwok | Squire Patton Boggs (Singapore)
Innovation and Business Success
RAYCAN, which was founded in 2009 by Xie Qingguo, a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Hubei province in China, launched the world’s first fully digital PET (Positron Emission Tomography) medical imaging system, winning a World Intellectual Property Organization Global Award in 2022 for its research.
The company’s general manager, Fang Chen, and IP director, Wang Kan, will speak about the role innovation has played in the company’s success as a business, the positive impact its innovative ambitions have had on the society and culture in which it operates, and how it has continued to foster innovation across all aspects of their business.
“RAYCAN’s core team attaches great importance to original innovation and IP protection,” says Mr. Wang. “PET (positron emission tomography) is the most advanced medical imaging technology in the world, and only a few companies can do it. If RAYCAN wants to survive in the future, we know that the most important thing is to insist on original innovation. IP is the most important asset for RAYCAN. We hope to achieve our business goals through the operation of IP, such as IP licenses, which RAYCAN also strives to use to promote progress and innovation in related fields.”
As the largest bank in Singapore and a known thought-leader in financial services, DBS’s digital transformation, which it began in 2014, has transformed the organization so much that, it “prides itself on being less like a bank and more like a tech company.”
DBS defines itself by its purpose-driven approach to making their work—banking—as good as it can be, as technologically sophisticated as possible, in an effort to drive the simplest user interface. They have, among other things, created more than 100 artificial learning and machine learning algorithms to analyze customer data, making use of cutting-edge technology, allowing it to make personalized product recommendations.
For both, the goal is to build an organizational ecosystem that is driven by future-facing adaptive qualities, all while staying true to the essence of the business. The panel will look into how both of these companies foster a culture that encourages their staff to function as creators and owners of innovation, with the goal of driving the business forward.
“If RAYCAN wants to survive in the future, we know that the most important thing is to insist on original innovation.”
- Wang Kan | RAYCAN (China)
Conversation and Participation
“Our panel is actually less of a panel discussion and more like a conversation,” says Ms. Kwok. “My role as moderator is not just to encourage the discussion between the speakers, who are in very different industries, but also between the speakers and the audience.
“We want to have the audience participate, so we can troubleshoot real-world issues and hear from those who can say, ‘Well, we've had that come up in our business and this is how we addressed it.’ That's what we're hoping for,” she adds.
Ms. Kwok expects the audience to include registrants from startups, smaller businesses, and entrepreneurs who are starting a business or may even be in the pre-funding round.
“In particular, RAYCAN can offer a lot of insights because they have basically grown from a small business to where they are now. The fact that a big organization like DBS is going to be represented is good, too. These people are giants in their field. There are lessons here for other big, established companies to adopt a startup mindset and vice versa.”
DBS’s digital transformation has thrust technology to the forefront of what the organization does as a financial institution. “There are some things that DBS has done which are unusual for a big bank, but keep the tech culture fresh and alive, and high up in the minds of employees,” Ms. Kwok says. “I understand, for instance, that it has a hackathon to bring in tech talent, not usually something you expect a bank to do. It's something you see tech companies doing, but for Singapore’s largest bank to attract tech talent by holding their own hackathon. I think that’s a smart move.”
“RAYCAN, on the other hand, has a particularly good understanding of how they have gotten to their present position by being an IP giant in Asia,” said Ms. Kwok
During the conversation, speakers will refer to real-life, replicable methods and tips their companies have used to foster innovation. “No doubt, this session will be hugely beneficial to businesses,” adds Ms. Kwok.
